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By  Stopford  Ji,  Brooke 

TENNYSON 

His  Art  and  Relation  to  Modern  Life 

8vo.     $2.00 


STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

8vo.    With  Photogravure  Portrait 

$1.75  net 

FOUR  VICTORIAN  POETS 

A  Study  of 
Clough— Arnold— RossettI— Morris 

8vo. 


Q.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 
NEW  YORK  LONDON 


FOUR 
VICTORIAN   POETS 

B  Studi?  of 

Clougb  Hrnolb 

1Ro06etti         flDorri0 

XKaitb  an  f  ntroDuction  on  tbe  Coutae  ot  poetri^ 
from  1822  to  X852 


BY 
STOPFORD  A.  BROOKE 

AUTHOR  OF  "TENNYSON  :   HIS  ART   AND  RELATION  TO  MODERN  UVB,' 
"the  STUDY  OF  POETRY,"  ETC. 


G.  P.  PUTNAM'S   SONS 

NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 

^be    fcnickerboclier    pce^s 

1908 


.^ 


Copyright,  1908 

BY 

G.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 


XTbe  tkniclserbocltet  pvc99,  tKcvo  tiotit 


CONTENTS 

FAGS 

Introductory i 

Arthur  Hugh  Ci^ough 30 

Matthkw  Arnold      .      • 56 

Dante  Gabriei.  Rossetti 145 

WiivLiAM  Morris 205 


iii 


257048 


FOUR  VICTORIAN  POETS 


INTRODUCTORY 

WHEN  Byron  and  Shelley  died,  the  impulse 
given  to  poetry  by  the  ideas  concerning  man, 
which  we  now  call  democratic,  was  exhausted 
for  a  time  in  English  poetry.  At  the  same  time  the 
impulse  given  to  poetry  by  the  hatred  of  them  had  also 
been  exhausted.  There  was  no  passion  for  or  against 
these  ideas  left  in  the  nation.  And  England,  thus  de- 
prived of  animating  conceptions  concerning  man — de- 
rived either  from  the  far  past  or  from  the  present— sank 
into  a  dreary  commonplace. 

Then  Keats,  who  had  felt  this  exhaustion  before  the 
death  of  Bryon  and  Shelley,  finding  no  ideas  in  the 
present,  recovered  for  poetry  the  ideas  of  the  past.  He 
called  on  England  to  live  for  beauty,  and  bade  her  find 
it  in  the  myths  of  Greece,  and  in  the  stories  of  romance. 
In  these,  he  thought — recast  so  as  to  manifest  the 
power  of  love,  truth,  and  beauty — the  poet  would  re- 
ceive into  his  heart  the  impassionating  ideas  of  the 
past,  realise  the  deep  emotion  he  needed  for  his  work. 


2  Four  Victorian  Poets 

and  give  to  men  the  high  pleasure  which  is  the  use  and 
honour  of  his  art.  He  has  done  that  for  us,  he  has  se- 
cured to  English  poetry  a  devotion  to  beauty.  But  in 
his  own  time  his  effort  failed.  There  was  no  response. 
Charmed  he  never  so  wisely,  England,  a  deaf  adder, 
stopped  her  ears.  The  poetry  of  Keats  awakened  no 
new  poetic  life  in  the  England  of  his  time ;  it  had  no 
children  then. 

There  was  one  man,  however,  who  might  be  called  a 
younger  brother  of  Keats,  and  whom  we  cannot  class 
among  those  who  merely  kept  poetry  alive  in  the  years 
which  followed  the  deaths  of  Shelley,  Byron,  and  Keats. 
Charles  Wells  stands  on  a  higher  level  than  the  poets 
of  that  weak  parenthesis  which  ended  with  the  rise  of 
Browning  and  Tennyson  in  the  famous  years  of  1830  to 
1833,  when  romance  was  re-bom  both  in  France  and 
England.  Inferior  in  genius  and  in  art  to  Keats,  he 
was  his  personal  friend,  and  drank  of  his  spirit.  But 
the  deadness  of  the  time  seized  on  him  and  he  only 
produced  a  single  poem — the  drama  oi  Joseph  and  his 
Brethren.  As  Keats  revealed  afresh  the  beauty  of  the 
Greek  and  mediaeval  stories,  so  Wells  unfolded  the 
beauty  of  a  Hebrew  tale,  recast  it  for  modem  thought 
and  feeling,  and  filled  its  outlines  with  modem  imagin- 
ations. Nevertheless,  and  this  marks  his  power  and 
taste,  he  did  not  spoil  its  simplicity. 

When  we  have  read  the  drama,  the  old  story  still 
stands  apart  with  quiet  steadfastness.  It  is  not  spoiled 
by  its  new  clothing.     Yet  what  we  read  is  Western  not 


^ 


Introd\ictory  3 

Eastern,  not  Hebraic  but  romantic.  The  events  are 
the  same,  but  the  atmosphere  is  changed.  The  char- 
acters are  fully  developed,  and  distinguished  each  from 
each  in  modem  fashion.  The  great  situations  are 
worked  out  with  a  close  analysis,  and  into  a  great  com- 
plexity quite  apart  from  the  Hebrew  genius.  The 
ornament  is  lavish,  and  the  scenery,  which  the  Hebrew 
story  does  not  touch,  is  invented,  both  for  Palestine 
and  Egypt,  with  all  the  care,  observation,  and  pleasure 
of  a  poet  who  had  read  the  nature-poetry  of  Shelley 
and  Wordsworth  and  walked  hand  in  hand  with  Keats, 
his  lover  and  friend,  through  the  landscape  of  England. 

The  book  was  published  a  year  after  the  death  of 
Keats,  under  the  pseudonym  of  H.  L.  Howard.  It 
fell  out  of  sight  for  nearly  fifty  years  when  Rossetti,  in 
Gilchrist's  Life  of  Blake ^  spoke  of  it  as  **  poetry  of  the 
very  first  class  whose  time  will  surely  come."  Thirteen 
years  afterwards,  in  1876,  Mr.  Swinburne  republished 
it  with  a  preface,  in  which  he  over-topped  Rossetti' s 
praise  by  praise  of  his  own,  but  neither  of  these  fine 
artists  have  succeeded  in  securing  for  it  the  general 
admiration  and  reading  it  deserves. 

The  story  of  Joseph,  ranging  from  the  pastoral  life 
of  a  wandering  tribe  to  the  life  and  government  of  a 
settled  kingdom,  passing,  as  it  follows  the  fortunes  of 
Joseph,  through  a  multitude  of  events,  characters,  and 
types  of  men,  and  holding  in  it  the  fates  of  the  Jewish 
people,  is  one  of  the  great  stories  of  the  world,  and 
worth  an  epic  treatment.    Charles  Wells  did  not  feel 


4  FoMr  Victorian  Poets 

the  world-wide  elements  in  it,  but  lie  felt  its  varied  and 
profound  humanity,  and  naturally,  feeling  one  side 
more  than  another,  he  chose  to  make  of  it  a  drama,  not 
an  epic.  Into  this  subject,  enlarged  by  imaginative  in- 
vention, he  could  interweave  all  he  knew  and  loved  of 
human  life.  And  the  poem  is  indeed  remarkable  for  a 
distinctive,  even  a  weighty  representation,  in  imagina- 
tive forms,  of  the  great  forces  of  the  life  of  mankind  ;  of 
the  moral  passions,  high  aims,  grave  issues,  and  tempta- 
tions of  individual  characters.  In  the  beginning  the 
treatment  of  these  matters  is  rapid,  even  superficial, 
but  the  latter  part  is  dignified  workmanship  ;  as  if  the 
writer's  life  had  been  solemnised  by  misfortune  into 
endurance. 

The  most  difficult  part  of  his  subject  to  treat  was 
the  temptation  of  Joseph  by  Phraxanor,  the  wife  of 
Potiphar ;  and  it  proves  the  power  of  Wells  that  it  is 
the  finest  passage  in  the  poem.  Art  demanded  that 
she  should  be  sensual,  yet  not  trivial  or  base ;  that 
there  should  be  qualities  in  her  nature  which  should 
lift  her,  in  an  imperious  personality  and  passion,  above 
the  vulgarity  of  mere  immorality.  And  there  is  in 
her,  as  conceived  by  the  poet,  so  great  an  intellectual 
power  in  her  passion,  so  frank  and  bold  a  will,  with- 
out one  trace  of  hypocrisy,  that  she  seems,  at  a  far 
lower  dramatic  level,  to  draw  towards  Shakespeare's 
Cleopatra,  yet  without  her  vanity,  her  petulance, 
her  flashes  of  cowardice  and  courage.  She  has  no 
repentance,  no  hesitation  ;  her  wrath  is  as  deep  as  her 


Introductory  5 

furious  love,  and  both  are  as  intellectual  as  they  are 
sensual.  His  hand  rarely  weakens  as  he  draws  her ; 
there  is  scarcely  a  line  which  does  not  add  a  fresh 
touch  to  the  portraiture.  Moreover,  she  is  set  off  by 
the  sketch  of  her  attendant,  who  is  a  gracious  and  ten- 
der woman,  as  unlike  her  mistress  as  a  primrose  of  the 
spring  is  to  the  crimson  rose  of  summer.  The  scene 
with  Joseph  is  managed  with  reticent  dexterity,  and 
the  fidelity  of  Joseph  is  saved  from  the  awkwardness 
of  the  situation  by  the  nob  1  ideals,  both  intellectual, 
moral,  and  personal,  which  Wells,  following  the  story, 
has  given  to  the  character  of  this  leader  of  men. 

To  read  the  whole  drama  is  to  wonder  why  the  poet 
wrote  so  little.  Had  he  been  justly  praised  he  might 
have  done  higher  work,  but  total  silence  greeted  his 
effort,  and  he  also  went  into  silence.  This  proves  that 
he  had  not  that  genius  which  cannot  rest  without  pro- 
duction, on  which  public  indifference  has  no  influence, 
and  public  blame  none  except  fresh  impelling.  Wells 
was  not  of  that  great  crew.  He  put  so  much  into  this 
poem  that  he  exhausted  his  genius  in  it.  There  are 
those  who,  like  the  fabled  aloe,  only  flower  once. 
Moreover,  it  is  a  characteristic  of  such  persons  that 
they  have  not  enough  of  art  to  stay  their  hand  when 
they  have  said  enough.  Wells  begins  and  continues 
the  various  parts  of  his  subject  with  power,  but  the 
power  fails  into  a  certain  weakness  when  he  closes 
them.  Thoughts  and  impressions  thin  out,  not  only 
in  weight  but  in  imagination,  and  the  verse  itself. 


6  Fo"ur  "Victorian  Poets 

mostly  full  and  solemn  in  sound,  loses  then  its  strength 
in  a  sweetness  too  delicate  to  last.  In  this  magnilo- 
quent weakness,  he  is  like  some  of  the  Elizabethans, 
whom  indeed  he  studied.  He  resembled  them  in 
audacious  picturesqueness,  in  inventiveness,  in  opulent 
creation  of  varied  characters,  and  in  their  love  of 
pageantry.  The  pageant  of  the  glory  of  Joseph  pass- 
ing through  the  city  is  a  splendid  invention,  blazing 
with  colour  and  light  and  companied,  step  by  step, 
with  human  interest.  Finally,  the  poem  places  him 
within  the  poetic  period  in  which  Shelley,  Keats,  and 
Byron  wrote.  He  is  too  good  to  be  classed  among 
the  poets  who,  after  the  death  of  Shelley  and  Byron 
did  no  more  than  keep  poetry  alive  till  Tennyson  and 
Browning  appeared. 

These  poets  were  imitative,  sensational,  and  senti- 
mental, not  possessed  by  any  large  or  animating  ideas. 
They  were  possessed  only  by  themselves ;  they  lived  in 
their  own  shadow  and  wrote  only  about  it.  And  they 
naturally  became  imitators  not  creators,  rivers  that 
were  soon  lost  in  the  sand,  pale  reflections  of  a  glory 
gone. 

There  was,  first,  a  set  that  imitated  Wordsworth, 
who  sang  of  the  life  of  the  country,  pleasant  kindly 
poets  like  John  Clare,  whose  three  volumes  a  lazy, 
rustic  squire,  yet  a  lover  of  country  sights  and  sounds, 
might  read  with  sympathy,  and  learn  how  to  deal 
gently  with  the  poor,  and  wisely  with  the  land. 

Again,    there   was   a  set   of  small   versifiers   who 


Introdvictory  7 

imitated  Byron.  They  sang  with  exquisite  feebleness 
of  guilty  heroes,  they  sought  to  be  as  world-forsaken, 
as  desolately  cynical  as  their  model,  and  they  caught 
his  easy  music  up.  Every  clerk  in  a  merchant's 
house,  every  fantastic  lover,  made  Byronic  songs  ;  and 
the  imitation  lasted  till  1840-50,  when  Tennyson  had 
taught  the  imitators  a  new  method. 

But  the  men  who  were  at  this  time  imitated  by  those 
who  had  in  their  breast  some  true  poetic  fire  were  Shel- 
ley and  Keats.  These  inspired  Thomas  1,.  Beddoes 
and  George  Darley.  Beddoes,  bom  in  1803,  did  "  all 
his  poetic  work,"  says  Mr.  Gosse,  "between  1 821,  when 
he  published  the  Improvisatorc,  and  1826  when  he 
practically  finished  Death'' s  Jest  Book. ' '  Beddoes  was 
himself  aware  of  the  exhaustion  of  the  time.  The  dis- 
appearance of  Shelley,  he  declares,  "  has  been  followed 
by  instant  darkness,  of  which  whether  the  vociferous 
Darley  is  to  be  the  comet,  or  tender,  full-faced  L.  B.  I^. 
the  milk  and  watery  morn,  I  leave  to  astrologers  to  de- 
termine. But  I  prophesy  nothing  but  fog,  rain,  blight 
in  due  succession."  The  blight  fell  upon  himself.  In 
a  few  years  his  invention  and  power  decayed.  He 
took  to  medicine,  misanthropy,  and  closed  in  madness. 
His  poems  are  for  the  most  part  fragmentary  efforts  of 
a  power  which  had  no  power  to  concentrate  itself.  It 
is  not  that  his  song  does  not  flow  imbidden  from  his 
lips,  as  Mr.  Gosse  thinks,  it  is  that  it  is  too  unbidden, 
not  shaped  within  into  clearness,  not  fed  by  thought; 
and  its  spontaneous  utterance,  desperately  striving  by 


8  Fovir  Victorian  Poets 


repeated  forms  of  the  same  idea  to  express  the  idea  and 
never  lucidly  expressing  it,  was  never  dominated  by 
the  mastery  of  art  crying  to  him,  '  *  Choose  the  best 
form  and  reject  the  rest."  The  Bride's  Tragedy  has 
not  stuff  enough  in  it  to  fiirnish  more  than  a  single  act, 
and  it  is  thinned  out  into  five.  There  are  a  few  fine 
passages,  but  not  a  single  perfect  one,  and  the  passion 
in  it  is  torn  to  rage.  As  to  Death's  Jest  Book,  it  is  a 
chaos  of  crude  elements,  huddled  together,  with  some 
noble  things  ill  expressed  contained  in  it,  but  chiefly 
made  up  of  those  bitter  playings  of  his  diseased  fancy 
with  death  and  its  revolting  forms,  which  prophesied 
his  insanity,  and  which,  whenever  they  predominate  in 
poetry  of  any  time,  proclaim  the  death  of  that  poetry. 
For  life,  and  the  will  to  live  eagerly,  are  the  breath 
and  fire  of  poetry. 

His  lyrics  have  been  highly  praised.  They  are 
based  on  Shelley,  and  on  the  lyrics  of  the  Elizabethan 
Dramatists  which  LarnVs  Specimens  had  now  brought 
into  prominence — a  book  which  touched  Darley  as 
well  as  Beddoes,  and  was  a  mighty  power  in  Charles 
Wells.  But  the  lyrics  of  Beddoes  have  not  enough 
in  them  either  of  humanity  or  of  Nature.  The  best  of 
them  are  the  lightest,  those  thrown  off  in  a  moment 
of  impulsive  fancy.  Of  the  poems,  the  one  I  like 
best  is  on  the  story  of  Pygmalion,  a  close  imitation, 
even  to  the  tricks  of  rhythm,  of  Keats' s  Endymion. 

Charles  Darley  has  been  classed  among  the  imitators 
of  Shelley,  but  not  quite  justly.      An  Irishman,  bom 


\ 


Introd-uctory  9 

near  Dublin  in  1795,  his  first  poem,  The  Errours  of 
Ecstasie^  was  probably  written  in  Ireland.  His  Silvia^ 
a  fairy  drama  half  in  prose,  published  in  1827,  is  a 
pretty,  graceful  thing,  full  of  colours  and  clinking 
verse.  There  is  not  one  weighty  thought  or  word  in 
it.  Its  treatment  of  Nature  is  light  and  pleasant ;  the 
characters  are  quite  boneless.  There  is,  however,  a 
description  of  the  faery  host  in  array  for  festival  which 
is  delightfully  fancied,  elfish,  gay,  and  glancing.  Nepen- 
they  another  poem  of  his,  is  justly  characterised  by 
Mr.  Rolleston  as  an  *  *  indescribable  rhapsody. ' '  He  will 
live  by  one  lyric — "It  is  not  Beauty  I  demand" — 
which  Palgrave,  not  knowing  who  had  written  it, 
classed  in  The  Golden  Treasury  among  the  anonymous 
writers  of  the  time  of  Milton  from  i6i6  to  1700.  It  is 
worthy  of  the  Elizabethan  lyrics,  and  Barley's  imita- 
tion of  the  Elizabethans  passed  in  it  from  imitation  into 
creation.  This  visitation  of  the  Elizabethans  is  the 
only  English  thing  about  him.  He  was  Irish,  with 
the  Irish  strength  and  weakness,  and  in  England  the 
Irish  strength  diminished  and  the  Irish  weakness  grew. 
He  is  an  Irish  poet  writing  in  an  English  atmosphere  ; 
that  is  at  the  root  of  him.  It  is  out  of  the  question  to 
class  him  as  a  follower  of  Shelley,  or  to  place  him  in 
the  roll  of  English  poets.  He  might  be  compared 
with  Thomas  Moore,  but  Moore  was  far  above  him. 
In  fancy  he  approached  Moore,  but  he  was  more  super- 
ficial, and  he  was  less  national.  As  to  his  art,  the  less 
said  about  it  the  better. 


lo  Four  Victorian  Poets 

Contemporary  with  these  unoriginal  poets  in  this 
short  exhausted  period  where  the  sentimentalists — 
little  rivulets  of  poetry  that  assumed  to  be  rivers. 
They  received  a  gracious  welcome  from  a  society  which 
did  not  desire  to  be  disturbed  by  ideas,  which  imagined 
that  the  materialism  it  loved  to  live  in  would  continue 
for  ever,  and  which  was  quite  willing  to  indulge  a 
dainty  sympathy  for  the  suffering  of  the  world  and  the 
starvation  of  the  English  poor,  provided  no  one  was 
bold  or  ill-mannered  enough  to  ask  them  to  surrender 
a  single  pleasure  or  a  single  guinea.  They  liked  to 
read  about  pain  and  trouble  in  the  past ;  they  hated 
to  read  about  it  in  the  present.  When  suffering  was 
known  to  be  over,  and  made  no  claim  on  them — to 
read  of  it  gave  a  pleasant  flavour  to  their  luxury  and 
to  their  degraded  peace.  Therefore  they  accepted  with 
a  barren  gratitude  Mrs.  Hemans,  I^etitia  Elizabeth 
Landor,  and  others  who  wrote  graceful,  pathetic,  per- 
fumed stories,  and  pretty  lyrics  about  spring,  of  love 
and  sorrow,  and  little  deeds  of  valour,  and  such  religion 
as  their  society  could  accept,  religion  which  promised 
them  in  heaven  a  pleasant  extension  of  their  agreeable 
life  on  earth. 

Mrs.  Hemans  had  a  real  poetical  turn.  Her  poetry 
is  musical,  her  love  of  nature  commonplace  but  truly 
felt,  her  copiousness  powerless.  She  had  little  intel- 
lect, and  the  great  matters  of  humanity  did  not  touch 
her  at  all.  She  was  widely  read  and  loved ;  but  all 
that  fame  and  affection  are  now  gone,  so  swift  is  the 


i 


I  ntroductory  1 1 

perishing  of  the  superficial,  of  that  which  has  no 
national  ideas  behind  its  work.  Yet,  if  we  desire  to 
possess  an  historical  example  in  poetry  of  this  period, 
we  may  find  in  some  library  on  some  dusty  shelf  the 
volume  which  contains  The  Forest  Sanctuary  and  some 
short  lyrics  by  Mrs.  Hemans.  They  mark  her  pretty 
capacity,  and  they  embody  the  sentimental  elements 
of  this  worn-out  poetic  period. 

Once  more,  a  small  set  of  poets  belonging  to  this 
time,  undertook  the  defence  and  propagation  of  those 
orthodox  views  in  theology  which  Shelley  had  at- 
tacked, which  Keats  ignored,  and  which  Byron  had 
accepted  and  hated.  The  best  of  these  was  Robert 
PoUok,  who  published  in  1827  his  Course  of  Time, 
a  long  poem  in  ten  cantos,  describing  with  many 
episodes  and  illustrations  the  condition  of  man  before 
the  last  judgment,  and  the  tremendous  event  itself.  It 
had  a  certain  harsh  and  hateful  power,  but  its  doctrine 
was  as  unspeakable  as  the  Turk.  The  one  inference 
to  be  drawn  from  it  is,  that  it  was  indeed  a  mercy  that 
a  soul  like  Shelley's  should,  in  the  realm  of  poetry, 
have  denounced  a  theology  which  violated  every  prin- 
ciple of  humanity,  and  have  recalled  the  hearts  of  men 
to  love  and  forgiveness  as  the  ground  of  religion. 

These  then  were  the  poetic  elements  in  the  air  of 
this  parenthesis  in  the  story  of  our  poetry.  But  Eng- 
land was  not  to  remain  a  prey  to  exhaustion,  a  land 
without  ideas,  a  nation  without  national  emotions  on 
high   matters  of  human  progress,    a  forest  with  no 


12  Foxir  Victorian  Poets 

full-voiced  birds  to  sing  in  its  trees.  The  democratic 
ideas,  in  a  new  form  and  fitted  to  existing  circum- 
stances, began  to  burn  again  in  the  poetry,  the  philos- 
ophy, the  religion,  the  social  and  political  realms  of 
England.  Deep-seated,  wide-spreading  emotion,  ac- 
companied by  serious  thinking,  stirred  the  country  and 
the  towns,  even  the  universities ;  and  the  deaf  opposi- 
tion of  the  baser  conservative  elements  in  society  only 
deepened  the  excitement.  The  state  of  the  oppressed 
and  starving  poor,  whether  in  the  country  or  in  the 
towns,  awoke  the  wrath  of  Bbenezer  Elliott,  the  Com 
lyaw  Rhymer,  and  in  1827  his  passionate  poetic  indict- 
ment of  the  shameless  wealth  and  comfort,  brought  by 
the  misery  of  the  workers,  ran  far  and  wide.  He,  like 
Wordsworth  and  Crabbe,  was  the  poet  of  poverty. 
But  he  carried  it  farther  than  these  men.  He  began 
the  crusade  against  its  evils  which  has  continued  to 
the  present  day.  The  return  to  Nature  which  Words- 
worth sang  was  good  ;  but  Elliott  asked,  ' '  What  have 
the  poor  to  return  to  ?  The  life  they  live  is  wholly 
unnatural,  not  according  to  Nature."  Nor  has  the 
voice  his  poetry  began  ever  failed  since,  till  quite 
lately,  in  English  song.  A  cloud  like  a  man's  hand 
was  rising,  full  of  menacing  fire,  into  the  dead  grey 
sky  of  England.  The  democratic  ideas  were  at  work 
again,  and  their  first  instalment  was  the  Emancipation 
of  the  Catholics,  the  Reform  Bill,  and  the  Repeal  of 
the  Com  I^aws,  events  which  were  the  pioneers  of  a 
mighty  progress.     They  stirred  England  to  its  depths. 


Introd-uctory  13 

Men  could  no  longer  complain  that  there  was  no 
national  passion  in  the  country ;  and  this  national  pas- 
sion for  new  ideas  fled,  like  an  angel  with  wings  of 
fire,  over  the  brains  and  into  the  souls  of  the  old  men 
who  saw  visions  and  the  young  men  who  dreamed 
dreams.  Those  who  were  by  nature  poets  received  the 
national  emotion,  and  it  stimulated  their  own.  They 
woke  to  use  both  these  emotions  on  their  own  subjects, 
and  before  four  years  had  passed  by  Tennyson  and 
Browning  began  the  new  life  of  English  poetry.  Nor 
was  religion  unaffected.  Just  at  the  same  time  these 
poets  began,  two  great  religious  movements  took  their 
rise.  Liberal  theology  began  with  Maurice ;  sacerdotal 
theology  with  Keble  and  Newman.  One  only  of  these 
movements  had  at  first  a  poet,  but  he  had  already 
written  in  Oxford,  in  1827,  The  Christian  Year,  Both 
movements  were  full  of  passion  and  thought.  Both 
have  not  only  deeply  influenced  England,  but  have 
also  done  her  great  and  lasting  good  ;  and  both  illus- 
trate afresh  the  work  of  the  ideas  of  the  Revolution — 
the  one  in  its  attraction  to  those  ideas ;  the  other  in  its 
repulsion  firom  them.  Thus  England  emerged  from 
her  vile  condition  of  careless  and  heavy  slumber  full  of 
sensual  dreams.  And  with  her  waking,  Poetry  awoke. 
And  the  light  of  Thought  was  in  her  eyes,  and  the  fire 
of  Love  in  her  heart,  and  of  them  was  Beauty  bom. 

Elliott  and  Keble  were  the  precursors  of  this  awak- 
ening. Elliott  began  as  a  poet  of  Nature.  '  *  Farewell, ' ' 
he  cried,    **to  the  town  and  its  horrors;  let  me  live 


14  Four  Victorian  Poets 


on  the  breast  of  Nature."  The  passion  of  Words- 
worth was  strong  in  him,  though  he  had  read  and 
loved,  but  did  not  justly  admire,  Keats  and  Shelley. 
But  as  he  grew  older,  he  was  drawn  aside  from  con- 
templation of  Nature  by  the  misery  of  the  poor,  by  the 
starvation  the  Corn  I^aws,  the  manufacturers,  and  the 
indifferent  landlords  imposed  on  the  people.  Words- 
worth, he  thought,  had  only  touched  the  comfortable 
poor.  Crabbe  gave  him  more  truth,  and  was  nearer  to 
his  heart — '*  Crabbe,  whose  dark  gold  is  richer  than 
it  seems" — ^but  Byron  had  most  power  over  his  soul. 
Byron's  anger,  force,  love  of  freedom,  even  his  gloom, 
suited  one  who  had  to  sing  the  stern  and  crying 
suffering  of  the  people. 

Elliott  quite  understood  that  Byron  would  not  have 
cared  about  the  English  labourer.  But  the  revolution- 
ary spirit  in  Byron,  his  fierce  scorn  of  the  oppressor, 
and  his  dying  effort  to  free  Greece,  made  him  a  spirit 
of  power  in  a  mind  like  Elhott's.  Soon,  leaving  Byron, 
he  took  his  individual  turn,  and  concentrated  and 
consecrated  himself  as  the  Poet  of  the  Poor.  And  well 
he  did  that  duty,  voicing  their  silent  pain  and  wrath 
with  unbroken  courage,  truth,  and  fervour.  At  first 
he  wrote  poems  of  some  length,  after  the  manner  of 
Robert  Bloomfield ;  and  if  we  wish  to  know  the  state 
of  rural  England  in  those  days,  we  cannot  do  better — 
and  this  will  illuminate  the  merely  political  histories 
with  the  light  of  reality — than  read  The  Patriarch  of 
the  Village  and  The  Splendid  Village,  There,  in  a  lurid 


Introductory  15 

light,  but  a  true  one,  the  rustic  England  of  those  times 
is  drawn ;  and  its  miseries  were  only  less  than  those  of 
the  peasants  of  France  before  the  Revolution.  Then, 
as  the  struggle  against  the  Corn  I^aws  deepened, 
Elliott  wrote  rough,  keen,  rousing  lyrics,  close  to  the 
very  truth  of  things,  the  passion  of  which  smote  like  a 
dagger,  the  reality  of  which  could  not  be  more  lucidly 
expressed.  What  he  saw,  he  wrote.  But  this  de- 
nunciation, and  all  the  fierceness  of  his  poetry,  were 
relieved  throughout  by  a  gracious  love  of  natural 
beauty,  a  joy  in  the  lovely  and  quiet  world  which  knit 
him  to  the  past  poets,  and  carried  him  forward  into 
those  who  were  to  come.  Moreover,  the  springs  of 
pity  and  tenderness  were  deep  in  him,  and  with  these, 
the  fountain  of  a  strong  and  humble  faith  in  God. 
These  saved  the  poetry,  gave  it  that  high  and  loving 
note  which  lifted  it  above  the  angers  of  denunciation, 
and  enabled  it  to  live. 

I  have  often  thought  that,  bad  as  things  are  still  in 
town  and  country,  and  much  as  I  wish  that  the  poetry 
of  our  own  day  should  now  enter  into  the  battle — the 
progress  made  in  social  good  during  the  last  seventy 
years  of  the  last  century  has  been  so  great,  and  so  well 
founded  on  steady  and  well-organized  ideas,  that  it 
deserves  greater  praise  than  has  been  given  to  it.  To 
read  the  Coronatioyi  Ode,  written  for  the  Sheffield 
Working  Men's  Association,  and  to  compare  it  with 
the  profound  feeling  which  ran  through  the  nation  at 
the  death  of  the  Queen,  is  to  realise  this  change.     If 


1 6  Four  Victorian  Poets 

the  people  liad  been  suffering  even  half  as  bitterly  as 
they  were  suffering  when  the  Queen  was  crowned, 
nothing  like  that  which  we  have  seen  when  she  died 
could  have  taken  place.  I  quote  this  ode  of  his, 
even  though,  as  poetry,  it  is  not  good.  It  is  not,  of 
course,  an  attack  on  the  Queen,  but  a  cry  against 
the  misery,  the  oppression,  and  the  past  policy  of  the 
country.  Its  sad  and  terrible  note  sounds  almost 
incredible  in  our  ears. 

CORONATION  ODE 

Victoria,  cypress-crown 'd !  thou,  good  in  vain  ! 
How  the  red  wreath,  with  which  thy  name  is  bound — 
The  page  which  tells  the  first  deeds  of  thy  reign, 
Black,  and  blood-blotted — cheer  the  Calmuck  hound. 
Whose  growl  o'er  Brunswick  hails  thee,  cypress- crown'd  ! 

Canada  weeps — and  yet  her  dead  are  free  ! 

Throned  o'er  their  blood  !  who  would  not  be  a  Queen  ? 

The  Queen  oi  new-made  graves,  who  would  not  be? 

Of  glory's  royal  flowers  the  loveliest  seen  ! 

So  young  !  yet  all  that  the  deplored  have  been  ! 

Here  too,  O  Queen,  thy  wo-worn  people  feel 

The  load  they  bear  is  more  than  they  can  bear ! 

Beneath  it  twenty  million  workers  reel ! 

While  fifty  thousand  idlers  rob  and  glare, 

And  mock  the  sufferings  which  they  yet  may  share ! 

The  drama  soon  will  end.    Four  acts  are  past : 

The  curtain  rises  o'er  embracing  foes. 

But  each  dark  smiler  hugs  his  dagger  fast  I 

While  Doom  prepares  his  match,  and  waits  the  close  ! 

Queen  of  the  Earthquake  ;  would'st  thou  win  or  lose  ? 

Still  shall  the  Car  of  Juggernaut  roll  on, 
O'er  broken  hearts  and  children  born  in  vain, 
Banner'd  with  fire  !  while  "  thousand  men  are  one  " 


Introd-uctory  17 

Sink  down  beneath  its  coward  wheels  of  pain, 

That  crush  out  souls,  through  crunching  blood  and  brain. 

Stop  ! — for  to  ruin  Antoinette  was  led, 

By  men,  who  only  when  they  died  awoke  ! 

Base  nobles  who  o'er  France  vain  darkness  spread, 

And,  goading  her  faint  steeds  with  stroke  on  stroke, 

Loaded  the  wain — until  the  axles  broke  ! 

Stop! — **  for  the  blasting  engine's  iron  Laws," 

Then  saved  not  thrones  from  outraged  Heav'n's  control. 

When  hunger  urg'd  up  to  the  cannon's  jaws 

A  sea  of  men,  with  only  one  wild  soul ! 

Hark ! — still  I  hear  the  echo  of  its  roll ! 

We  can  scarcely  listen  to  it  without  feeling  that  the 
main  ideas  of  the  Revolution,  so  long  silent  in  Eng- 
land, were  again  arising  into  life.  What  would 
England  make  of  them  ?  What  would  they  become 
in  the  New  Poetry  they  prophesied  and  stimulated? 
The  answer  poetry  gave  was  no  obscure  one.  The 
ideas  changed  their  manner ;  they  changed  the  form  of 
their  demands ;  they  were  modified  by  circumstances ; 
but  they  lived  on.  They  became,  not  a  furious 
menace  from  without,  but  a  spirit  moving  slowly 
from  within,  working  in  quiet  ways,  infiltrating  them- 
selves into  almost  every  sphere  of  human  thought, 
and  moving  with  dignity,  and  yet  with  passion, 
through  the  poets  from  this  time  till  about  1870,  when 
again  they  began  to  change  their  form. 

Keble  was  another  precursor  of  the  awakening. 
That  awakening  was  destined  in  poetry  to  be  greatly 
interested  in  ideas  of  religion,  and  one  species  of  these 
ideas   arose   in    1827    with    the    publication    of  The 


1 8  Foxjir  Victorian  Poets 

Christian  Year.  In  this  book  Keble  created  a  new 
method  and  a  new  aim  in  religious  poetry.  The 
religious  poets  of  the  Eighteenth  Century  were  more 
hymn-writers  than  poets,  but  the  greater  part  of 
Keble' s  work  was  quite  apart  from  the  inevitable 
conventionality  of  the  hymn,  even  when  it  was  written 
by  Cowper.  Nor  was  it  fantastic,  like  that  of  Herbert, 
or  philosophical  like  that  of  Vaughan  or  More.  It 
was  simple,  moving  on  the  common  meadow-paths 
of  gentle  devotion ;  and  its  only  philosophy  was  that  of 
the  heart  of  humble  men  seeking  communion  with 
God.  At  the  same  time,  it  bound  up  with  itself  a 
set  of  large  religious  ideas.  It  seized  on,  and  brought 
into  poetry  the  mighty,  emotionalising  traditions  of 
the  Church  from  the  earliest  times;  the  weight  and 
passion  of  two  thousand  years  of  thought  and  asso- 
ciated action.  It  had  not  force  enough  to  represent 
the  thousandth  part  of  this,  but  what  it  did  grasp 
redeemed  religious  poetry  from  the  narrow  limits  which 
confined  it  to  prayer  and  praise  alone.  Moreover,  it 
brought  religious  poetry  out  of  the  closed  sphere  of  the 
inner  life  into  the  home,  into  the  trials  and  temptations 
of  the  social  life  of  men  and  women.  The  whole  range 
of  devotional  poetry  was  expanded.  Again,  he  brought 
religious  feeling  into  union  with  the  new  love  of  nature 
for  her  own  sake.  The  mountains,  rivers,  woods,  and 
plains,  the  glories  of  the  morning,  evening,  and  nightly 
sky,  are  in  his  pages,  gently,  serenely  felt.  And  he 
used  the  tender  grace,  the  beauty  of  the  scenery  of 


Introdxjctory  19 

Palestine,  which  then  began  to  be  well  known,  to  en- 
hance the  poetry  which  dealt  with  the  gospel  history. 
Many  of  the  poems  in  The  Christian  Year  begin  with 
refined,  deUcate,  and  deeply-felt  descriptions  of  nature 
which  are,  as  symbolism  or  as  teaching,  carried  on  by 
gracious  gradation  into  the  spiritual  life.  These 
passages,  in  their  academic  peace  and  delicate  feeling, 
faintly  echo  Gray,  but  their  loving  observation  of  na- 
ture is  as  true  as  that  of  Tennyson.  No  one  has  used 
nature  better  in  the  service  of  the  soul.  This  also  was 
an  expansion  of  the  poetry  of  religion,  and  it  was  in 
harmony  with  the  ideas  of  the  new  time. 

As  to  poetry  itself,  it  was  possessed  of  a  sweet 
melody,  and  the  melody  was  varied  into  many  forms. 
Its  grip  on  the  matters  it  treated  was  not  always  strong; 
it  wavered,  and  lost  its  hold  only  too  often ;  but  that 
is  a  fi-equent  fault  in  poets  who  live  in  contemplation. 
I  have  said  that  it  extended  religious  poetry  into  the 
home  and  social  life  of  men,  but  it  did  this  tentatively, 
and  was,  naturally  enough  and  chiefly,  the  poetry  of 
a  cloistered  soul.  But  it  was,  in  its  own  sphere,  felici- 
tous, seeking  a  small  perfection,  and  suflSciently  im- 
aginative, though  in  it  the  imagination  never  soared. 
Above  all,  it  was  pervaded  by  the  charm  of  quiet ;  of 
delicate  thought  and  twilight  emotion.  Historically, 
it  did  a  great  work  for  the  religious  movement  it  was 
the  first  to  define.  Newman  added  to  its  poetry  some 
ot  his  own  which,  though  it  has  taken  a  high  place  in 
the  minds  of  many,  seems  to  be  gravely  overrated. 


20  Four  Victorian  Poets 

These  poets  opened  out  the  dawn  of  a  new  poetic 
world,  and  in  a  few  years  the  sun  arose  in  Tennyson 
and  Browning,  moved  not  only  by  their  own  native 
genius  but  by  the  passion  of  England,  now  at  last 
awakened  into  keen  life  by  fresh  social,  political, 
artistic,  and  religious  ideas.  On  them,  and  their  rela- 
tion to  their  time  and  its  movements,  I  have  written 
at  large.  What  I  wish  now  to  do,  before  I  come  to 
a  discussion  of  the  new  elements  which  entered 
poetry  with  Clough  and  Arnold,  is,  leaving  Tenny- 
son and  Browning  aside,  to  follow  the  ideas  of  the 
lesser  poets  who,  in  this  great  awakening,  sang  the 
imaginative  thinking  of  mature  men,  and  the  devious 
aspirations  of  the  young. 

In  the  ten  years  which  preceded  1842  when  Tenny- 
son collected  his  poems  for  the  first  time,  when 
Browning  had  published  Paracelsus  and  Sordello,  there 
was,  first,  one  set  of  poets  who  rather  reverted  to 
Wordsworth  than  belonged  to  the  new  tim^.  They  had 
nothing  to  do,  however,  with  the  half-dead  period  on 
which  I  have  written ;  their  poetry  was  of  a  steady, 
temperate,  highly  cultivated  quality.  Thought  and 
emotion  belonged  to  it,  but  it  was  too  philosophic,  too 
much  afiraid  of  emotion,  and  of  too  curbed  an  imagina- 
tion to  become  of  a  great  or  universal  influence.  It 
reacted  from  the  more  impassioned  work  of  Shelley, 
Keats,  and  Byron,  to  that  of  Wordsworth — to  Words- 
worth, not  as  the  youthful  poet,  but  as  the  poet  of  The 
Excursion,     Such  poetry  as  that  written  wildly  and 


Introductory  21 

loosely  by  Beddoes  and  Darley,  such  sentimentalism  as 
that  which  flowed  from  Mrs.  Hemans  or  L,.  B.  I^.  were 
painful  to  men  who  had  now  begun  to  live  among  great 
events,  and  historical  movements  of  thought.  Again, 
in  this  new  noise  of  the  world,  which  grew  louder 
and  fiercer  from  1830,  this  type  of  men  took  refuge  in 
the  silent  love  of  Wordsworth  for  quiet  things,  and 
not  least  in  his  spiritual  communion  with  nature,  to 
whose  resting-places  they  fled,  in  brief  holidays,  from 
the  storm  and  stress  of  affairs.  Moreover,  Words- 
worth's energetic  grasp  of  the  fundamental  elements  of 
man's  nature,  his  firm  hold  on  its  great  and  universal 
truths,  appealed  not  only  to  middle-aged  men,  seeking 
severely  for  truth  in  great  confusion, — the  confusion  of 
a  world  newly  awakened  from  sleep — but  also  to  young 
men  at  the  Universities,  who  were  deeply  moved  by 
the  prospect  of  a  life  so  full  of  warring  elements,  on 
which  they  were  about  to  enter.  The  poets  who  voiced 
this  reaction  to  Wordsworth  were  only  a  small  school,  X 
but  they  expressed  the  feeling  of  a  large  number  of 
persons  at  this  time.  The  most  representative  of  them 
was  Sir  Henry  Taylor,  whose  Philip  Van  Artevelve 
was  published  in  1834.  This  drama,  which  may  fairly 
be  called  philosophical,  deals  with  government,  popu- 
lar disturbance,  wars  and  their  conduct,  in  an  age 
crowded  with  sudden  and  bold  activities ;  and  is  full  of 
action,  of  various  types  of  men,  and  of  thought  on  pub- 
lic affairs.  And  love,  treated  with  some  stateliness, 
even  with  humour  and  pathos,  legitimate  and  illegiti- 


22  Fo\jir  Victorian  Poets 

mate,  runs  through  its  seriousness  as  a  secondary  not 
as  a  principal  part  of  life.  The  interlude,  between  the 
two  parts  of  the  drama,  is  a  well-wrought  study  of  a 
woman  who  had  loved  too  much  and  too  often  for  her 
peace ;  a  creature  of  impulse  and  fire,  with  a  born  ob- 
liquity in  her  nature.  Its  lyric  form,  its  natural  descrip- 
tion of  Italy,  its  revelation  of  a  wildered  woman's  soul, 
and  her  pathetic  self-judgment,  is  the  best  poetry  in 
the  book.  In  it  Taylor  let  his  imagination  loose  ;  in 
the  drama  he  curbed  it  so  closely  that  it  lost  charm. 
He  subordinated  his  poetry  to  his  intellect,  and  his 
other  dramas  are  subject  to  a  similar  criticism. 

Another  school  of  poets  which  arose  in  this  excited 
time  was  the  school  to  which  was  afterwards  given  the 
nickname  of  Spasmodic  by  persons  who  were  incapable 
of  writing  its  poetry.  It  had  a  great  vogue.  Bailey's 
Festus  was  praised,  and  justly,  by  excellent  judges. 
Sydney  Dobell's  Balder^  and  The  Roman^  and  the 
Poems  of  Alex.  Smith  received  ovations  in  their  day. 
After  fully  fifteen  years.  Professor  Aytoun's  Firmilian^ 
a  Spasmodic  Tragedy^  exaggerating  grossly  the  faults 
of  the  school,  killed  it.  But  Festus  still  continues  to 
claim  our  admiration  for  its  high  poetic  qualities.  It 
was  published  in  1839;  and  was  begun  when  Bailey 
was  twenty  years  old.  He  enlarged  it  till  he  died.  It 
embodied  a  new  theology,  neither  of  Newman  nor  of 
Maurice,  but  a  layman's  theology  freed  from  the  limits 
of  authority,  of  tradition,  and  of  conventional  morality. 

The   unbridled    thinking,    and    unmixed    self-con- 


i 


Introdvictory  23 

sciousness  of  this  time — each  man  thinking  himself  » 
a  universe — were  naturally  strongest  in  the  young  / 
men,  and  strongest  of  all  in  young  poets.  That 
Wordsworthian  reversion  on  which  I  have  dwelt,  with 
its  philosophy  and  quietudes,  left  the  hot-tempered, 
passionate,  aspiring,  egotistic  young  men  quite  un- 
represented. It  suited  grave  men  or  premature  young 
men,  like  Stuart  Mill,  but  it  stirred  rebellion  in  the 
impetuous  who  felt  that  it  left  half  of  life  untouched. 
And  the  new  wine  in  the  land,  the  emotions  of  ideas 
growing  into  form,  and  shaping  themselves  into  new 
circumstances,  deepened,  as  all  national  movements 
will,  the  natural  excitement  of  poetic  young  men, 
thirsting  for  fame  and  love.  Therefore  their  poems 
begin,  for  the  most  part,  with  vast  soliloquies,  many 
pages  long,  which  describe  their  soul,  its  ineffable 
powers  and  aims ;  and  their  own  passion  to  reach  the 
top  of  fame,  not  only  in  poetry,  but  in  everything. 
Again,  the  hunger  for  love  in  many  forms,  moral  and  *. 
immoral,  was  raised  by  these  poets  into  a  kind  of 
religion.  It  was  necessary,  they  thought,  for  their  full 
development  as  poets  that  they  should  go  through,  in 
many  different  women,  varied  aspects  of  love  in  its 
joys,  its  miseries,  and  its  remorse.  Nothing  could 
be  more  unlike  the  view  of  love  which  Wordsworth, 
Scott,  Byron,  Shelley,  or  Keats  expressed.  With  them 
it  was  not  the  whole  of  life,  and  it  was  always  naturally 
treated.  These  new  poets  whipped  it  into  a  morbid 
prominence,  sometimes  into  an  imaginative  sensuality 


24  Fo\jr  "Victorian  Poets 


which  pretended  to  be  religious.  It  was  a  not  un- 
natural reaction  from  a  school  which  looked  on  passion 
in  love  as  unworthy  of  a  true  philosophy  of  life,  or 
from  a  school  which  made  it  into  pretty  sentiment. 
The  senses,  the  appetites  are  part  of  human  nature. 
They  also  are  to  be  presented  in  poetry,  but  there,  if 
art  represents  their  base  extremes,  such  art  has  ceased 
to  be  art,  and  has  passed  into  the  science  of  morbid 
conditions. 

Another  element  in  this  poetry  was  an  over-assertive 
individuality.  Bach  of  these  poets,  to  his  own  think- 
ing, contained  all  nature  and  all  human  nature.  To 
investigate  and  represent  the  finity  of  themselves  was 
their  deepest  interest,  and  ought  to  be  the  deepest 
interest  of  the  world.  Some  even  seem  to  think 
that  they  ought  to  have  in  their  hands  all  know- 
ledge and  all  power;  the  poet,  they  declare,  is  the 
true  governor  of  the  world.  Kach,  at  least,  believed 
himself  to  be  the  first  of  poets.  Their  egotism  is 
unlimited,  but  it  is  the  product  of  their  time. ,  Individ- 
ualism, as  in  all  periods  of  quickened  life  in  a  nation, 
had  now  become  one  of  the  ruling  ideas  of  public  and 
personal  life.  It  appears,  but  modified  by  true  genius, 
in  Paracelsus  and  Sordelloy  and  in  many  poems  of 
Tennyson.  It  continued,  and  very  fully,  to  display 
itself  in  the  work  of  Clough  and  Arnold ;  nor  did  it 
lessen  much  till  Morris  and  Rossetti  carried  poetry  into 
another  atmosphere,  in  which  the  personal  soul  was 
made  of  less  importance.     Moreover,  it  was  quite  in 


I 


Introdxjctory  25 

harmony  with  the  whole  drift  of  political  and  social 
opinion.  The  glorification  of  individual  freedom  to 
act  as  it  pleased,  independent  of  the  interests  of  the 
whole — the  opposite  doctrine  to  that  of  collectivism — 
ruled  the  internal  politics  of  the  State,  of  trade,  and  of 
all  social  questions  from  1832  to  1866,  when  the  first 
blow  was  concisely  administered  to  individualism. 
These  poems  were  the  exaggerated  exposition  in  art 
of  this  individualism. 

Then  again,  this  claim  of  the  poets  to  absolute  free- 
dom of  self- development  made  them  claim  full  freedom 
for  national  development  and  for  the  overthrow  of  all 
oppression.  The  democratic  ideas,  scarcely  represented 
by  Tennyson  or  Browning,  were  ever  since  1832  quite 
awake  in  England.  They  grew  hotter  as  the  years 
went  on.  The  reactionary  work  of  the  French  mon- 
archy, the  oppression  of  North  Italy  by  Austria,  the 
condition  of  Rome  and  Naples,  the  treatment  of  Poland, 
the  state  of  the  poor  and  the  working  men  of  England, 
multiplied  the  power  of  those  ideas.  They  broke  into 
fierce  revolt  in  1848 ;  and  they  were  represented  by 
these  poets.  Sydney  Dobell's  Roman ^  published  in 
1849,  an  indictment  of  Austria's  villainies  in  Italy,  and 
a  claim  for  a  united  Italy,  with  Rome  as  its  centre, 
ran  from  edition  to  edition,  and  was  only  one  example 
of  poetry  filled  with  sympathy  for  the  struggle  for 
freedom  on  the  Continent.  Clough  shared  in  this 
excitement.     Arnold  receded  from  it. 

But  even  more  than  by  fame,  love  and  freedom,  these 


26  Fouir  Victorian  Poets 

poets  were  moved  by  theology,  and  into  their  theology 
each  intruded  his  own  special  individuality.  The  the- 
ological excitement  had  begun  in  and  about  1830  in 
the  Universities,  and  had  now  extended  over  the  whole 
of  religious  England.  Tennyson  and  Browning  shared 
in  it,  but  with  a  dignity  of  genius  that  separated  them 
from  the  rest.  Clough  and  Arnold  were  closely  in- 
volved in  it,  and  all  the  minor  poets  of  this  time  took 
part  in  the  battle.  But  these  poets,  whom  I  now  dis- 
cuss, represented  it  in  separate,  individual,  unchartered 
forms — as  it  expressed  itself  in  the  excited  souls  of  lay- 
men who  owned  no  authority  of  church  or  sect,  and 
followed  no  especial  form  of  creed.  They  made  the- 
ology in  its  relation  to  life,  even  more  than  love,  the 
subject-matter  of  their  poetry.  But  they  were  not 
temperate,  concise,  or  conscious  of  the  limitations  of 
thought,  like  the  greater  poets  ;  they  were  sensational, 
endlessly  fluent,  and  claimed  to  be  at  home  in  regions 
of  thought  beyond  the  sight  of  man.  The  problems 
of  theology  are  discussed  by  them  at  such  portentous 
length  that  one  can  only  explain  the  great  vogue  of 
these  poems  by  a  universal  excitement  on  the  subject 
in  religious  society .  The  best  of  them  was  Festus.  It 
opens,  like  Goethe's  Faust,  with  God  and  Satan  in  col- 
loquy, and  Satan  is  allowed  to  tempt  Festus.  It  ends 
with  Festus  being  made  King  of  all  humanity  and  with 
the  immediate  destruction  of  the  whole  human  race. 
He  has,  before  this,  visited  with  I^ucifer  Heaven  itself 
and  Hell,  and  all  the  inhabited  planets,  and  is  the 


A 


Introductory,  27 

friend  of  several  archangels.  The  scenes  are  set  in 
Space,  in  Elsewhere,  in  Everywhere,  in  Chaos,  and  in 
various  parts  of  the  earth,  where  he  develops,  with  a 
perfect  serenity  of  conscience,  a  complete  series  of  dif- 
ferent affections  for  different  women.  At  the  end  of 
the  poem  is  the  last  judgment,  and  it  is  worth  noting 
that  he  was  the  first  of  the  poets  tq  teach  universal 
redemption.  All  the  human  race  are  saved ;  evil  has 
only  existed  for  the  development  of  good ;  and  since 
the  work  of  Satan  has  been  God's  instrument  to  draw 
forth  good,  he  and  all  the  rebel  host  are  called  back  by 
God  to  take  their  original  places  in  heaven.  Embras- 
sons  7iouSy  mes  enfajits^  disaitle  bon  Dieu,  tout  s'explique. 
This  universalism  was  only  one  of  the  various  phases 
of  religious  thought  which  arose  in  this  time  of  intel- 
lectual excitement,  and  were  naturally  represented  by 
the  poets.  Indeed,  more  and  more,  theories  and  ques- 
tions of  religion  caught  hold  of  the  poetry  of  England 
from  1840  to  i860,  hi  Memoriam  appeared  in  1850. 
The  controversy  between  Newman  and  his  opponents 
was  still  hot  in  Oxford  in  the  forties,  and  had  extended 
far  and  wide  over  England.  A  liberal  theology,  into 
whose  tenets  I  need  not  enter  here,  had  been  well  be- 
gun, and  gathered  disciples  round  it  year  after  year. 
The  authority  of  the  Church  was  set  up  against  the 
claim  a  large  class  of  men  made  to  complete  freedom 
of  investigation,  criticism,  worship,  and  belief.  Others 
tried  to  hold  the  balance  between  these  two  extremes, 
to  discover  and  pave  a  via  media^  but  instead  of  one  via 


28  Fovir  Victorian  Poets 

mediUy  different  thinkers  made  many.  And  beyond 
the  main  schools  of  religious  thought,  there  were  guer- 
rilla schools  that  fought  for  their  own  hand.  Out 
of  the  religious  struggle  there  arose,  not  only  a  host  of 
questions  concerning  doctrinal  theology  which  excited 
the  intellect  as  much  as  the  passions  of  men,  but  also 
multitudinous  questions  concerning  the  problem  of 
human  life — its  origin,  its  end,  its  conduct,  its  relation 
to  God,  and  His  relation  to  it,  whether  our  will  in  it 
was  free  or  subject  to  necessity,  whether  its  happenings 
mastered  us  or  we  them — old  questions  in  new  shapes. 
Was  its  evil  good  or  its  good  evil,  was  life  itself  illusion 
or  reality,  what  attitude  in  it  was  the  true  attitude  of 
the  soul,  and  a  hundred  minor  problems  clashing  to- 
gether like  a  swarm  of  atoms.  As  long  as  men  had 
faith  in  the  authority  of  a  Church  or  a  Book  which 
revealed  the  origin  and  destiny  of  man  in  God's  will, 
the  divine  conduct  and  sacred  laws  of  being,  the  re- 
demption of  the  world  by  the  sacrifice  and  resurrection 
of  Christ — so  long  men  felt  that  hope  and  peace  might 
be  attained  in  the  midst  of  this  turmoil  of  thought,  so 
long  they  believed  that  into  the  darkness  light  could 
arise  and  prevail.  But  now,  at  this  very  time,  the  dis- 
coveries of  science  and  especially  of  geological  science 
threw  doubt  on  the  authority  of  the  Book,  and  histori- 
cal criticism,  coming  from  Germany,  threw  doubt  on 
the  Gospel  History  on  which  the  authority  of  the 
Church  reposed.  Wherever  men  read  and  thought, 
the  disturbance  which  already  existed  was  now  deep- 


Introdxictory  29 

ened,and,  as  the  years  went  on  to  the  sixties,  it  deepened 
more  and  more. 

Into  the  midst  of  this  whirlpool  of  thoughts  and^>^ 
hopes  and  passions,  political,  social,  ideal,  democratic,    | 
but   chiefly  religious    and    theological,   Clough    and    [ 
Arnold  were  cast.     They  came  up  to  Oxford  between    V 
1836  and  1840,  and  remained  there,  absorbing  Oxford      / 
and  its  battlings  of  thought  into  their  very  marrow :      \ 
and  they  represent  the  tempestuous  tossing  of  their       ] 
time,  especially  in  their  early  poems,  far  more  than      / 
Tennyson  or  Browning  seated  above  the  strife  and  / 
moving  on  larger  lines  were  capable  of  doing. 


ARTHUR  HUGH  CI.OUGH 

OF  all  the  poets  who  played  on  England  as  on  a 
harp,  Clough  was  one  of  the  most  personal.  He 
was  even  more  personal  than  Arnold,  who  could 
detach  himself  at  times  from  himself.  But  Clough  was 
never  self-detached  in  his  poetry,  even  when  he  tried  to 
be  so.  He  contemplated  his  soul  and  its  sensitive  and 
bewildered  workings  incessantly,  and  saw  in  them  the 
image  of  that  which  was  going  on  in  the  soul  of  the 
younger  men  in  England.  Sometimes  he  is  intensely 
part  of  the  spiritual  strife  he  is  conscious  of,  because  he 
is  so  conscious  of  it  in  himself ;  sometimes  he  watches 
it  from  without,  as  a  press  correspondent  might  the 
battle  he  describes ;  sometimes,  in  the  course  of  a 
single  poem,  he  flits  from  the  inside  to  the  outside 
position,  or  from  the  outside  to  the  inside ;  but  al- 
.ways  it  is  the  greater  image  of  his  own  soul  that  he 
watches  in  the  struggle  of  the  whole;  always  he  is 
intimately  close  to  the  trouble  or  calm,  the  wonder- 
ing or  the  anchoring  of  the  eager,  restless,  searching, 
drifting  being  within,  whom  he  did  not  wish  to  be 
himself.  No  one  is  more  intimate,  more  close,  more 
true  to  this  inward  life.     It  is  this  which  makes  him 

so  interesting  and  so  much  a  favourite  with  those  who 

30 


A.rtH\jir  H\jgH  ClougK  31 

like  him.  They  see  a  man  in  much  the  same  condition 
as  they  are,  or  have  been,  themselves;  they  feel  that 
he  has  been  quite  true  to  himself  in  it,  and  has  done 
his  very  best  to  tell  the  truth — and  to  read  true  things 
said  truly  is  always  a  keen,  if  sometimes  a  sorrowful 
pleasure.  Moreover,  no  obscurity,  no  vagueness, 
troubles  the  reader.  We  are  conscious  that  he  has 
striven  with  all  his  might  to  render  the  matter  in 
question  into  the  most  lucid  form  he  can;  and  few 
have  put  remote  and  involved  matters  of  the  soul 
into  such  simple  words  as  Clough. 

Again,  we  see,  through  all  the  confused  trouble  he 
describes,  and  in  spite  of  all  the  wavering  and  uncer- 
tainty, that  he  has  one  clear  aim — that  of  getting  out 
of  the  storm,  if  possible,  into  some  bright  light  and 
quiet  air.  He  does  not  like  the  confusion  and  the 
questioning,  and  the  trouble,  but  desires  to  be  quit  of 
them,  if  this  can  be  done  truthfully.  He  will  not  shut 
his  eyes  to  any  difiBculty,  nor  retire  to  his  tent  while 
the  battle  is  going  on,  nor  pretend  there  is  no  con- 
fusion, for  the  sake  of  light  and  sweetness.  Truth  to 
himself  first  —  then  he  will  be  fit  to  see  the  Truth 
itself,  if  it  be  possible.  But  it  is  his  aim,  his  hope, 
his  impassioned  desire,  even  in  despair,  to  see  it 
at  last.  That  Truth  w,  he  believes;  and  he  sets 
himself  to  work  his  way  to  it  through  the  tangled 
forest  of  life. 

It  fortifies  my  soul  to  know 

That,  though  I  perish,  Truth  is  so ; 


32  Four  "Victorian  Poets 

That,  howsoe'er  I  stray  and  range, 
Whate'er  I  do,  Thou  dost  not  change. 
I  steadier  step  when  I  recall 
That,  if  I  slip,  Thou  dost  not  fall. 

'  '  To  a  certain  degree  then,  lie  was  above  scepticism. 
He  did  not  think  it  a  fine  condition;  the  last  thing 
he  imagined  was  that  there  was  any  reason  for  being 
proud  of  it ;  nevertheless  he  would  not  move  one  inch 
out  of  it  till  his  reason  and  conscience  together  told 
him  he  might  leave  this  or  that  question  behind.  The 
only  thing  he  knew  was  that  there  was  a  clear  solution 
to  be  found  somewhere,  sometime,  in  the  Truth  itself. 
Even  the  star  of  that  knowledge  was  sometimes  over- 
whelmed in  clouds.  He  kept  his  head  and  heart 
however ;  he  was  finally  master  in  his  soul.  He  moved 
amid  the  disorganised  army  of  his  thoughts  and  emo- 
tions, like  a  great  captain  who  sees  and  knows  the 
troubled  state  of  his  army,  and  the  desperate  and 
broken  ground  over  which  it  has  to  advance ;  who 
visits  every  regiment  and  knows  the  wants  of  each; 
who  has  entered  every  tent,  who  is  aware  of  the  fears, 
doubts,  failures,  and  despairs  of  every  man — ^but  who  is 
determined  to  lead  the  army  on,  because  he  knows  that, 
far  away,  there  is  a  safe  and  quiet  resting-place — soft 
grass  and  clear  streams  within  a  fortified  defence  — 
where  he  can  camp  them  at  last,  order  them,  and  re- 
store their  spirit.  Sometimes  he  is  all  but  hopeless; 
whence  he  has  brought  the  armies  of  his  soul  he  cannot 
tell ;  whither  they  are  going  he  cannot  tell ;  all  is  doubt 
and  trouble ;  but  again,  there  are  hours  of  rest  when 


J 


ArtHxir  HvigH   Clou^H  33 

the  place  whither  he  is  going  and  its  far  ofif  light  are 
clear  ;  at  times  he  feels  a  proud  joy  in  the  fighting  for- 
wards ;  at  times  nothing  lives  but  exhaustion,  yet  he 
never  thinks  of  surrender.  Here  is  a  poem  which  puts 
this  life  of  his  into  clear,  gentle,  but  impassioned  form : 

Where  lies  the  land  to  which  the  ship  would  go  ? 
Far,  far  ahead,  is  all  her  seamen  know. 
And  where  the  land  she  travels  from  ?     Away, 
Far,  far  behind,  is  all  that  they  can  say. 

On  sunny  noons  upon  the  deck's  smooth  face, 
I^inked  arm  in  arm,  how  pleasant  here  to  pace  ; 
Or,  o'er  the  stern  reclining,  watch  below 
The  foaming  wake  far  widening  as  we  go. 

On  stormy  nights  when  wild  north-westers  rave. 
How  proud  a  thing  to  fight  with  wind  and  wave  ! 
The  dripping  sailor  on  the  reeling  mast 
Exults  to  bear,  and  scorns  to  wish  it  past. 

Where  lies  the  land  to  which  the  ship  would  go  ? 
Far,  far  ahead,  is  all  her  seamen  know. 
And  where  the  land  she  travels  from  ?    Away, 
Far,  far  behind,  is  all  that  they  can  say. 

Whence  and  whither  our  ship  came,  and  goes,  and  the 
ship  of  all  humanity,  we  cannot  know,  though  we  may 
hope  to  know.  We  live  by  faith,  not  knowledge. 
Sometimes  the  battle  is  illuminated  and  rejoiced  by 
sudden  outflamings  of  faith ;  again  it  is  darkened  by 
absolute  despair.  Faith  in  God  rushes  up  one  day 
through  the  crust  of  doubt  and  drowns  every  sceptical 
thought ;  the  next  day,  there  is  no  God.  Christ  is  not 
risen  ;  the  day  after  He  is  risen.  There  is  no  rest,  no 
clear  heaven,  no  knowledge  of  whence  and  whither — 


34  Fo\ir  Victorian  Poets 

nothing  but  tossing  to  and  fro.  Kven  when  he  falls 
back  on  duty,  a  voice  in  his  heart  tells  him  it  is  not 
enough.  He  must  find  the  unknown  Perfect  his  soul 
desires. 

At  last,  he  is  enraged  with  his  condition.  Life  is 
slipping  away  in  overthinking,  in  this  way  and  that 
dividing  the  swift  mind.  The  soul,  while  he  is  young, 
is  growing  old  in  a  diseased  confusion.  Is  this  life,  he 
asks,  this  the  end  of  our  stay  on  earth  ? 

PERCHfe  PBNSA?  PBNSANDO  S'INVBCCHIA 

To  spend  uncounted  years  of  pain, 

Again,  again  and  yet  again, 

In  working  out  in  heart  and  brain 

The  problem  of  our  being  here  ; 
To  gather  facts  from  far  and  near, 
Upon  the  mind  to  hold  them  clear, 
And,  knowing  more  may  yet  appear ; 
Unto  one's  latest  breath  to  fear 
The  premature  result  to  draw — 
Is  this  the  object,  end,  and  law, 

And  purpose  of  our  being  here  ? 

There  are  those  who  are  not  troubled  by  any  such 
questions,  simple  folk  who  believe  and  have  peace,  and 
Clough  praises  their  life  and  thinks  them  true  and 
happy;  at  moments  he  can  feel  with  them,  but  not  for 
long.  There  are  others  who  find  peace  and  power  to 
live  and  work  by  giving  up  all  questions  of  this  kind 
as  hampering  life  and  useless  for  good.  But  Clough 
was  not  of  that  temper,  and  could  not  enter  its  regions. 
He  did  his  duty,  but  a  tender  intensity  of  passion 


d 


ArtKvir  Hxag'K  CloxigH  35 

urged  him  beyond  it  to  find  the  rest  in  perfection.  He 
was  the  image  and  the  expression  of  thousands  who 
lived  in  that  disturbed  time,  when  criticism  and  science 
set  the  battle  in  array  against  the  old  theology.  It  is 
the  image  and  the  expression,  even  now,  after  the  bat- 
tle has  raged  for  sixty  years,  of  the  condition  of  a  num- 
ber of  persons  who  are  impassioned  to  find  a  truth  by 
which  they  can  live,  who  desire  to  believe  but  are  un- 
able, who  are  equally  unable  to  find  peace  in  unbelief. 
Thus  moving,  like  a  Hamlet,  through  the  strifes  of  the- 
ology and  religion,  he  resembles  Hamlet  in  another  way. 
When  the  Prince  is  suddenly  flung  into  the  storm  of 
action,  he  takes  momentarily  a  fierce  part  in  it,  and  enjoys 
it,  till  overthinking  again  seizes  on  him.  Clough  re- 
peats this  in  his  life,  and  his  poetry  is  touched  with  it. 
These  are  the  causes  of  the  pleasure  with  which  we 
read  Clough' s  earlier  poetry — its  clear  image  of  a  cer- 
tain type  of  men  and  women  in  a  spiritually  troubled 
time,  its  close  contact  with  and  intimate  expression  of 
the  constantly  debating  soul,  its  truthfulness,  its  sanity 
amid  scepticism,  its  statement  of  all  sides  of  the  matter 
in  hand,  its  personal  humanity,  and  its  sympathy  with 
man,  its  self-mastery  and  its  clear  aim.  There  is 
also  plenty  of  good  matter  of  thought  and  of  emotion 
worthily  controlled — great  things  in  poetry,  provided 
they  are  expressed  poetically.  But  the  poetry  itself  is 
not  of  a  high  quality;  its  level  is  only  a  third  of  the 
way  towards  greatness;  it  is  imaginative,  but  the 
imagination  in  it  never  soars  and  never  is  on  fire, 


36  Foxir  Victorian  Poets 

never  at  a  white  heat;  on  the  contrary,  its  play  is 
gentle,  soft,  touched,  like  an  autumn  evening  when 
summer  has  just  died,  with  tender,  clear,  brooding 
light.  The  greater  number  of  these  poems  are  such  as 
a  man  who  lived  in  a  constant  atmosphere  of  trouble 
and  battle  might  write,  when,  wearied  with  the  strife, 
he  enjoyed  an  hour  of  forgetful  rest  after  trouble,  and 
of  sheathing  of  the  sword  after  battle ;  and  I  do  not 
know  of  any  other  poet  of  whom  this  may  be  said  so 
truly.  In  that  he  is  alone — that  is  the  distinction  of 
these  early  poems.  And  this  clear,  soft,  brooding  note 
is  just  as  clearly  struck  in  the  poems  which  have 
nothing  to  do  with  the  trouble  of  the  soul,  but  with 
matter  of  the  affections.  I  quote  this  little  idyll :  how 
grave  it  is,  and  tender ;  what  an  evening  light  rests 
upon  it ;  not  the  light  of  Italy,  but  of  the  northern  sky 
among  the  mountains.  What  self-control  breathes  in 
it ;  what  a  quiet  heart,  quiet,  not  by  the  absence  of 
passion,  but  by  self-restraint,  and  by  that  on  which 
Clough  so  often  dwelt  and  which  subdued  his  poetry 
so  often — ^by  the  sense  of  the  inevitable,  of  a  fate  which, 
hemming  us  in  on  every  side,  imposes  on  us  its  will, 
and  ignores  our  struggle  and  our  pain  : 

ITB  DOMUM  SATURN,  VEJNIT  HKSPBRUS 

The  skies  have  sunk,  and  tied  the  upper  snow, 
(Home,  Rose,  and  home,  Provence  and  La  Palie.) 
The  rainy  clouds  are  filing  fast  below. 
And  wet  will  be  the  path,  and  wet  shall  we. 
Home,  Rose,  and  home,  Provence  and  La  Palie. 


Arthvir  Hugh  Cloxsg'H  37 

Ah  dear,  and  where  is  he,  a  year  agone, 

Who  stepped  beside  and  cheered  us  on  and  on  ? 

My  sweetheart  wanders  far  away  from  me, 

In  foreign  land  or  on  a  foreign  sea. 

Home,  Rose,  and  home,  Provence  and  La  Palie. 

The  lightning  zigzags  shoot  across  the  sky, 
(Home,  Rose,  and  home,  Provence  and  La  Palie.) 
And  through  the  vale  the  rains  go  sweeping  by  ; 
Ah  me,  and  when  in  shelter  shall  we  be  ? 
Home,  Rose,  and  home,  Provence  and  La  Palie. 

Cold,  dreary  cold,  the  stormy  winds  feel  they 
O'er  foreign  lands  and  foreign  seas  that  stray. 
(Home,  Rose,  and  home,  Provence  and  La  Palie.) 
And  doth  he  e'er,  I  wonder,  bring  to  mind 
The  pleasant  huts  and  herds  he  left  behind  ? 
And  doth  he  sometimes  in  his  slumbering  see 
The  feeding  kine,  and  doth  he  think  of  me. 
My  sweetheart  wandering  whereso'er  it  be? 
Home,  Rose,  and  home,  Provence  and  La  Palie. 

The  thunder  bellows  far  from  snow  to  snow, 
(Home,  Rose,  and  home,  Provence  and  La  Palie.) 
And  loud  and  louder  roars  the  flood  below. 
Heigh-ho  !  but  soon  in  shelter  shall  we  be  : 
Home,  Rose,  and  home,  Provence  and  La  Palie. 

Or  shall  he  find  before  his  term  be  sped. 
Some  comelier  maid  that  he  shall  wish  to  wed  ? 
(Home,  Rose,  and  home,  Provence  and  La  Palie.) 
For  weary  is  work,  and  weary  day  by  day 
To  have  your  comfort  miles  on  miles  away. 
Home,  Rose,  and  home,  Provence  and  La  Palie. 

Or  may  it  be  that  I  shall  find  my  mate. 

And  he  returning  see  himself  too  late  ? 

For  work  we  must,  and  what  we  see,  we  see. 

And  God  he  knows,  and  what  must  be,  must  be. 

When  sweethearts  wander  far  away  from  me. 

Home,  Rose,  and  home,  Provence  and  La  Palie. 


38  Fo\jr  Victorian  Poets 

The  sky  behind  is  brightening  up  anew, 
(Home,  Rose,  and  home,  Provence  and  I^a  Palie.) 
The  rain  is  ending,  and  om:  journey  too  ; 
Heigh-ho  !  aha !  for  here  at  home  are  we  : — 
In  Rose,  and  in  Provence,  and  I^a  Palie. 

There  may  be,  he  thinks,  inevitable  partings,  how- 
ever true  men  and  women  be  to  one  another.  Ijife 
moves  us  to  an  end  of  which  we  know  nothing,  which 
we  cannot  master. 

This  is  a  favourite  motive  of  his,  as  indeed  it  was 
of  Matthew  Arnold.  They  must  have  discussed  it 
a  hundred  times  at  Oxford.  We  niay  exercise  our 
will  on  circumstance,  but  it  is  of  no  avail.  We  try, 
and  try  again  and  yet  again,  but  a  little  thing,  of 
which  we  take  no  note,  turns  us  from  the  goal.  At 
last  we  grow  wearied  of  being  baffled,  and  give  up  the 
thing  we  desired ;  and  then,  in  the  hour  when  we 
have  released  ovirselves  from  pursuing,  we  wonder,  as 
we  look  back,  whether  we  really  cared  for  the  thing 
we  pursued,  or  whether  the  person  we  pursued  cared 
for  us.  A  series  of  slight  pressures  of  circumstance  on 
a  dreamy  and  sensitive  soul  drifts  the  will  away  from 
its  desired  goal,  and  each  of  the  drifts  is  accepted. 
Clough  must  have  felt  that  this  was  the  position  of  a 
part  of  his  soul,  perhaps  with  regard  to  matters  of 
thought,  certainly  so  far  as  the  affections  were  con- 
cerned ;  or,  if  that  is  assuming  too  much,  he  must  at 
least  have  sympathised  keenly  with  this  position  in 
others.  At  any  rate,  he  knew  all  about  it.  It  is  a 
frequent  motive  in  his  poems,  and  one  whole  poem, 


A.rtH\ir  HiigH  ClougH  39 

the  Amours  de  Voyage^  is  a  careful  study  of  this  mat- 
ter of  the  heart.  Clough  seems  to  take  a  personal 
delight  in  the  slow,  subtle,  close  drawing,  week  by- 
week,  of  the  wavering,  wandering,  changeful  drifting 
of  the  heart  of  the  hero  in  love,  into  pursuit,  and  out 
of  love  —  never  one  moment's  resolution,  never  an 
hour  of  grip  on  circumstance,  never  one  bold  effort  to 
clench  the  throat  of  Fate.  Many  are  involved  in 
similar  circumstances,  and  have  a  similar  temper  ;  and 
the  result  in  the  poem  is  the  exact  result  of  a  soul  in 
that  condition.  And  it  seemed,  I  suppose,  to  Clough 
that  it  would  be  well  to  paint  their  condition,  to  show 
its  folly,  its  evil,  and  its  end.  "  Go,  little  book,"  he 
says — 

"  Go,  and  if  curious  friends  ask  of  thy  rearing  and  age, 

Say,  *I  am  flitting  about  many  years  from  brain  unto  brain  of 

Feeble  and  restless  youths  born  to  inglorious  days.'  " 

Of  course,  we  need  not  believe  in  the  inevitableness  of 
the  position,  nor  indeed  did  Clough  finally.  When  he 
recorded  it,  he  recorded  what  he  had  felt  and  known 
in  himself,  but  he  had  passed  out  of  it.  Only,  what 
he  had  then  attained — for  I  think  he  speaks  of  himself 
— "that  happiness  was  to  be  found  in  knowledge,  that 
faith  passed,  and  love  passed,  but  that  knowledge 
abided"— was  not,  it  seems,  a  much  better  position. 
Knowledge,  to  be  sure,  is  a  good  thing,  but  it  is  a 
foundation  for  life  which  is  always  shifting.  Its  abid- 
ing is  only  for  a  short  time,  and  its  professors  have  to 


40  Four  Victorian  Poets 

relay  their  foundations.  And  in  the  moral  realm,  in 
the  conduct  of  life,  to  say  nothing  of  the  spiritual 
realm,  knowledge,  or  what  passes  for  knowledge,  is 
frightfully  insecure,  and  is  attended  with  one  fatal 
comrade,  with  pride  in  itself. 

This  is  always  true:  "Knowledge  puffeth  up,  but 
lyove  edifieth  "  ;  and  if  I  may  judge  from  the  bulk  of 
his  poetry,  Clough  came  to  that  at  last.  As  to  this 
insistence  on  fate,  on  the  inevitable  in  circumstance,  it 
is  not  an  image  of  true  life.  Man  is  not  master  of  the 
whole  of  fate,  for  he  is  not  able  to  see  all,  but  a  great 
deal  of  what  he  thinks  inevitable  is  in  his  hands.  If 
he  cannot  climb  over  obstacles,  he  can  get  round  them  ; 
that  is,  if  he  have  courage,  and  chose  to  exercise  his 
will,  to  be  what  he  was  made  to  be — a  cause  in  the  uni- 
verse. Fate,  as  they  call  it,  seems  herself  to  remove  the 
obstruction,  if  we  take  her  gaily  and  boldly.  If  we 
march  up  to  the  barrier,  we  find  it  to  be  mere  cloud 
through  which  we  go  easily  to  the  other  side.  It  is 
always  wise  to  disbelieve  in  obstacles. 

If  the  gentleman  in  the  Amours  de  Voyage^  when  he 
found  that  he  had  just  missed  his  love  at  Florence, 
had  not  waited  to  analyse  his  feelings,  and  then 
arrived  too  late  at  the  next  town  where  she  had  been, 
and  then  paused  to  analyse  again  his  sensations,  and 
then  was  the  victim  of  a  misdirected  letter,  and  then 
gave  up  his  pursuit ;  had  he  knit  his  heart  into  any 
resolution,  instead  of  saying  "Whither  am  I  borne,'* 
he  would  easily  have  found  the  girl,   and  found  his 


ArtHxir  Ii\ji^H  ClougK  41 

happiness.     Fate?  nine-tenths  of  fate  are  in  our  own 
hands,  but  we  let  the  other  tenth  master  us,  and  then' 
fate  fills  the  nine- tenths  which  was  in  our  power  withj 
her  own  sombre  self.    This  is  our  punishment,  and  we 
deserve  it. 

Well,  it  is  a  good  thing  to  have  the  whole  matter 
laid  before  us  with  such  remarkable  closeness  and 
veracity  as  Clough  has  done  in  this  poem.  Its  hero 
is  a  characteristic  type :  cultivated,  retiring,  disliking 
society.  He  has  been  thrown  in  the  past,  like  Clough, 
into  a  world  of  jarring  strife  and  noise,  of  mental  and 
spiritual  disturbance.  Sensitive,  refined  till  he  thrills 
at  a  touch,  angry  with  the  circumstances  of  life  which 
call  him  to  act — when  action,  which  forces  him  into 
contact  with  vulgar  reality  out  of  philosophic  dreams, 
is  as  repugnant  to  him  as  it  was  to  Hamlet  "  a  cursed 
spite  ' '  of  fate — he  welcomes  any  change,  any  chance, 
which  takes  him  out  of  the  world  of  strife  and  effort. 
This  also  was  the  case  with  Clough  himself,  from 
whom  the  hero  of  the  poem  is  partly  drawn. 

He  was  wearied  with  the  strife  within ;  he  sought 
the  world  without;  he  welcomed  the  chance  of  em- 
ployment elsewhere.  He  left  Oxford,  and  afterwards 
went  to  America.  There  he  gathered  pupils  around 
him  at  Cambridge,  and  wrote  for  the  reviews.  The 
things  he  wrote  were  not  of  any  high  quality  ;  they 
have  not  even  subtlety ;  they  have  no  distinction. 
Uncontent  still,  he  came  back  to  England,  his  friends 
having  found  him  a  place  in  the  Education  Office. 


J 


42  Fovir  Victorian  Poets 

And  then,  his  career  being  decided  for  him,  and  his 
drifting  boat  anchored  by  another  hand  than  his  own, 
he  settled  down  to  the  prim  ways,  and  regular  work, 
and  consistent  routine  of  a  government  office,  with  its 
pleasant  holidays.  And  then,  too,  he  married,  and 
loved  his  wife,  his  children,  and  his  home ;  and  gath- 
ered love  around  him,  and  found  that  love  did  abide 
and  edify.  His  humour  was  set  free  from  sorrow. 
The  questions  which  had  so  deeply  perplexed  him 
were  still  subjects  of  careful  thought,  but  they  tor- 
mented him  no  more.  He  passed,  we  are  told,  '*  from 
the  speculative  to  the  constructive  phase  of  thought," 
and  would  have,  had  he  lived,  expressed  his  matured 
conceptions  of  life  in  a  more  substantial  way.  He  was 
happy  and  useful.  He  was  always  oppressed  with 
the  **  sadness  of  the  world,  and  the  great  difficulties 
of  modern  social  life,"  but  he  turned  his  mind 
steadily,  in  this  atmosphere  of  love  and  happiness, 
and  with  the  deep  experience  they  gave  him,  to 
help  towards  this  solution.  I  wish  he  had  had  time 
to  record  in  poetry  his  conclusions,  but  office  work  is 
a  great  disintegrator  of  poetic  creation,  and  very 
little  was  done,  and  that  not  good  as  poetry,  before 
the  blind  Fury  came  with  the  abhorred  shears,  and 
slit  the  thin-spun  life. 

I  He  was  only  forty-three  years  old.  The  tales  pub- 
lished under  the  title  of  Mari  magno  were  written  dur- 
ing the  last  holidays  of  his  life,  while  he  searched  for 
health,  and  the  last  of  them  when  he  was  dying.    They 


ArtHvir  Hvji^H  CloxigH  43 

are  for  the  most  part  concerned  with  the  question  of 
marriage  :  its  true  end,  its  trials,  fitness  for  it,  and 
other  matters.  They  have  their  own  interest,'  but  their 
main  interest,  like  that  of  all  the  poems,  is  Clough's 
revelation  of  his  character. '  He  was,  with  that  sensi- 
tive nature  of  his,  a  reserved  man  ;  but  when  he  wrote 
poetry,  the  unconscious  disclosure  of  his  soul — the 
piece  of  human  nature  he  knew  best,  and  in  which  he 
was  most  interested — was  so  fine  and  accurate  and  all 
the  more  attractive  because  it  was  done  unawares — 
that  it  fascinates  even  those  readers  who  do  not  think 
highly  of  the  poetry. 

There  is,  however,  another  element  in  it  which  has 
its  own  fascination.  This  is  the  ceaseless  change  of 
mood  within  one  atmosphere,  like  the  ceaseless  change 
of  cloud  scenery  in  a  day  of  the  same  kind  of  weather 
from  morning  to  evening.  We  never  can  tell  what  is 
coming  in  a  poem,  what  the  next  verse  will  bring  out, 
what  new  turn  will  be  given  to  the  main  matter.  More- 
over, from  day  to  day  his  mood  varied.  He  might 
be  sarcastic  on  Monday,  depressed  on  Tuesday,  gently 
humorous  with  life  on  Wednesday,  despairing  on 
Thursday,  joyous  with  hope  and  strong  in  fortitude  on 
Friday,  idyllic  on  Saturday,  sceptical  on  Sunday  morn- 
ing, religious  on  Sunday  evening,  and  subtle,  delicate, 
and  tender  every  day.  This  has  its  own  attraction  for 
certain  people,  and  those  who  like  him,  like  him  dearly. 

Then,    he  had  an  excellent,   light- flitting,   kindly 
humour.    Sometimes  it  was  broad  enough,  as  in  that 


44  Four  Victorian  Poets 

poem  about  money,  written  in  Venice,  in  the  character 
of  a  vulgar  rich  man,  two  verses  of  which  I  quote : 

As  I  sat  at  the  caf6,  I  said  to  myself. 
They  may  talk  as  they  please  about  what  they  call  pelf, 
They  may  sneer  as  they  like  about  eating  and  drinking, 
But  help  it  I  cannot — I  cannot  help  thinking 

How  pleasant  it  is  to  have  money,  heigh-ho. 

How  pleasant  it  is  to  have  money. 

I  sit  at  my  table  en  grand  seigneur. 
And  when  I  have  done,  throw  a  crust  to  the  poor  ; 
Not  only  the  pleasure,  one's  self,  of  good  living. 
But  also  the  pleasure  of  now  and  then  giving. 
So  pleasant,  etc. 

Sometimes  his  humour  touches  lightly  and  softly  the 
comfortable,  thoughtless  life,  as  in  these  two  verses  on 
the  gondola : — 

Afloat ;  we  move.     Delicious !     Ah  I 
What  else  is  like  the  gondola? 
This  level  floor  of  liquid  glass 
Begins  beneath  us  swift  to  pass. 
It  goes  as  though  it  went  alone 
By  some  impulsion  of  its  own. 
How  light  it  moves,  how  softly !     Ah, 
Were  all  things  like  the  gondola ! 

With  no  more  motion  than  should  bear 
A  freshness  to  the  languid  air  ; 
With  no  more  effort  than  exprest 
The  need  and  naturalness  of  rest. 
Which  we  beneath  a  grateful  shade. 
Should  take  on  peaceful  pillows  laid. 
How  light  we  move,  how  softly !     Ah, 
Were  life  but  as  the  gondola ! 

So  live,  nor  need  to  call  to  mind 
Our  slaving  brother  here  behind ! 


ArtH\ir  Hxjg'H  Clo\jgH  45 

Sometimes  it  is  a  humorous  mock  at  his  own  want  of 
decision  and  force,  as  in  that  poem  which  wonders  how 
Columbus  could  ever  have  conceived,  or,  rather,  ever 
have  carried  out  his  conception  of  a  world  beyond  the 
apparent  infinity  of  waters.  **  How  in  God's  name  did 
Columbus  get  over,"  is  the  first  line  of  the  poem,  and 
it  ends  by  insisting  that  no  one  who  had  guessed  that 
there  was  a  world  beyond  the  great  waters  would  ever 
have  gone  sailing  on,  and  that  he  himself  could  never 
have  done  it.  *"T  is  a  pure  madness,  a  pure  wonder 
to  me."  The  Bothie  also  is  full  of  quaint,  observant 
humour.  All  the  Oxford  elements  of  his  day  are 
there ;  liked,  even  loved,  but  held  up  to  gentle,  subtle 
ridicule,  delicately  touched,  but  touched  home.  Ox- 
ford's young  enthusiasm  is  pictured  in  the  pupils,  its 
quiet  temper  in  the  tutor,  its  dress,  its  ways  of  talk, 
the  beginning  of  its  sestheticism,  its  hereditary  self- 
satisfaction,  its  variety  of  youthful  intellect,  its  high 
sense  of  honour  and  morality,  its  manliness,  its  noisy 
athleticism,  its  sense  that  Oxford  is,  on  the  whole, 
though  a  doubt  may  now  and  then  intrude,  the  mother, 
and  the  father,  too,  of  the  intellectual  universe ;  and  its 
reading  parties,  with  a  tutor,  the  incubator  of  states- 
men, poets,  philosophers,  radical  emigrants,  and  con- 
servative squires,  all  fitted  to  replenish  the  earth  and 
subdue  it,  to  counsel  and  lead  the  world. 

The  poem,  written  in  broken-boned  hexameters, 
belongs  to  his  early  time.  It  is  his  longest  effort. 
Four  young  men,  with  a  grave  tutor,  form  a  reading 


46  Fovir  Victorian  Poets 

party  in  the  Highlands.  They  go  to  a  sporting  func- 
tion at  the  I^aird's,  and  Philip  Hewson,  the  radical 
and  revolutionist  of  the  party,  in  whom  Clough,  no 
doubt,  sketched  his  own  opinions  at  this  time,  meets 
there  a  Highland  girl,  the  daughter  of  a  small  farmer 
near  Braemar.  The  farmer  invited  Hewson  to  visit 
him  if  he  should  come  that  way.  He  falls  in  love  with 
the  girl,  begs  her  to  marry  him,  and  sends  for  the 
tutor  to  guarantee  his  character.  The  girl  refuses  at 
first ;  their  stations  in  life  are  different.  She  will  be, 
she  thinks,  in  his  way.  The  farmer  doubts  on  the 
same  grounds.  Will  his  daughter  be  happy?  But 
Philip  does  not  desire  to  live  in  this  burdened,  de- 
naturalised Kngland  ;  his  opinions  (and  they  may  repre- 
sent a  dream  of  Clough' s)  lead  him  to  a  freer  life,  close 
to  Mother  Earth,  in  a  new  land.  Will  she  come  with 
him,  taking  a  plough,  a  tool-box,  a  few  books,  pic- 
tures, and  ;^5oo  to  New  Zealand  ?  The  tutor  thinks 
he  could  not  do  better ;  the  girl  is  charming,  intelli- 
gent, a  true-hearted  woman  ;  both  are  in  love,  love 
based  on  mutual  reverence;  and  Philip  is  a  hard 
worker,  who  will  put  all  his  theories  to  the  test  in  an 
eager  life  in  a  fresh  country.  So  they  marry ;  and 
Clough,  whom  the  social  subject  of  marriage  engaged 
all  his  life,  airs  his  views  in  tender  converse  between 
Philip  and  Elsie,  mixed,  as  is  always  the  case  in  his 
work,  with  a  certain  high  reasonableness  which  their 
love  idealises. 

There  is  a  true  love  of  nature,  especially  of  Highland 


i 


ArtH\ir  H\jgH  Clo\jgH  47 

scenery,  in  the  poem.  Clough  loved  the  mountains. 
Wales  and  the  Highlands  were  dear  to  him.  He 
wandered  alone,  meditating,  among  the  glens  ;  it  was 
his  great  pleasure  to  have  his  contemplation  broken 
by  nature's  sudden  shocks  of  mild  surprise,  and  to 
weave  what  he  saw  into  what  he  thought.  His  friend, 
Frank  Palgrave,  who  wrote  a  gentle,  distinguished 
memoir  of  him,  said  that  his  mind  was  **  haunted  like 
a  passion ' '  by  the  loveliness  of  poetry  and  scenery  ; 
that  by  his  **  acceptance  in  the  natural  landscape,  he 
had  inherited  a  double  portion  of  the  spirit  of  Words- 
worth. He  loved  nature,  not  only  for  its  earthly  sake, 
but  for  the  divine  and  the  eternal  interfused  with  it. ' ' 
This  seems  too  strongly  said,  but  it  is  the  judgment  of 
a  friend.  Clough  may  have  loved  nature  as  much  as 
Wordsworth,  but  he  had  not  Wordsworth's  power  of 
expressing  his  love.  His  descriptions  are  ill-com- 
posed ;  the  spiritual  passion  he  felt  slightly  appears  in 
them.  In  the  Bothie^  the  halting  metre  mangles  the 
description ;  indeed,  here,  as  in  the  whole  of  his 
poetry,  the  execution  lags  behind  the  conception.  Art 
had  not  thrown  her  mantle  over  this  man;  the  lan- 
guage does  not  enhance  or  uplift  the  thought;  it 
rather  depresses  and  lowers  it ;  and,  though  we  always 
understand  him,  which  is  a  blessed  gift  to  us,  consider- 
ing what  we  suffer  from  others,  we  wish  that  the 
clearness  of  the  poem  had  been  accompanied  by  a  finer 
composition  and  workmanship.  Palgrave  even  goes 
so  far  as  to  say  that  **one  feels  a  doubt  whether  in 


4^  Fo-ur  Victorian  Poets 

verse  he  chose  the  right  vehicle,  the  truly  natural 
mode  of  utterance."  If  that  means  that  Clough  would 
have  perhaps  done  better  to  write  in  prose,  I  am  sure, 
though  it  sounds  bold  to  say  so,  that  the  critic  is 
wrong.  I  have  been  surprised  by  the  inferiority  of 
Clough' s  prose  to  his  poetry.  His  prose  does  not  rise 
beyond  the  level  of  the  ordinary  review ;  his  soul  is 
not  living  in  it.  On  the  contrary,  in  his  poetry, 
though  it  does  want  art,  and  does  hot  seek  for  it,  there 
is  a  spirit  always  moving — a  dehcate,  fantastic,  chang- 
ing spirit ;  a  humanity,  with  a  touch  here  of  Ariel, 
and  there  of  Puck  ;  a  subtle  sound  and  breathing  such 
as  one  hears  in  lonely  woods  and  knows  not  whence  it 
came,  and  a  melody  of  verse  which  his  friend  Matthew 
Arnold  never  arrived  at;  and  these  qualities  prove, 
as  I  think,  that  prose  was  not  the  true  vehicle  of  his 
thought,  and  that  poetry  was.  I  cannot  conceive  that 
even  the  mocking  arguments  of  the  Fiend  in  Dipsychus^ 
would  be  half  as  well  expressedin  prose.  There  is  a 
short  prose  dialogue  at  the  end  of  that  poem.  To  read 
it  and  compare  it  with  the  poetry  is  proof  enough  of 
this.  As  to  the  impassioned  utterances  of  the  soul  in 
Dipsychus  struggling  to  hold  its  immortal  birthright 
against  the  tempter  who  cries  :  **  Claim  the  world  ;  it 
is  at  your  feet," — some  passages  of  which  are  quite 
remarkable  in  spiritual,  I  do  not  mean  religious,  poetry 
— they  would  be  impossible  in  prose.  Prose  could  not 
reach  their  feeling,  nor  the  delicate  interlacing  of  their 
thinking.  "\  It  is  in  describing  the  half-tones  of  the 


ArtKvir  H\jgH  Clo\jgK  49 

spirit's  life  as  well  as  of  the  life  of  tlie  heart,  in  touch- 
ing with  the  delicate  finger  the  dim,  delicate  regrets 
and  hopes  and  fears  which  flit  before  us  like  moths  in 
twilight,  in  following  with  soft  and  subtle  tread  the 
fine  spun  threads  of  a  web  of  thought,  in  recording  the 
to  and  fro  questions  and  answers  of  our  twofold  self 
within,  and  passing  from  one  to  another,  each  different 
as  light  and  darkness — with  distinctive  power  and 
pleasure  in  the  play — it  is  in  these  remote,  unsailed-on 
seas  of  feeling  and  contemplation  that  Clough's  best 
work  is  done,  and  very  few  have  done  the  same  kind 
of  work  so  well.  The  best  of  this  kind  is  written  in 
the  region  of  the  spirit,  but  he  loved  also  to  write  of 
remote  and  unvisited  regions  of  the  affections,  where 
Destiny,  as  it  were,  played  her  part  in  bringing  to- 
gether, and  in  parting,  lovers  and  friends;  and  the 
pathetic  quiet,  the  still  submission  to  the  parting,  and 
the  silent,  sorrowful  hope  that  Destiny  may  again 
unite  those  she  has  divided,  are  as  simply  told  as  they 
are  tenderly  felt.  Here  is  a  poem  which  uses  a  com- 
mon occurrence — one  of  his  favourite  methods — to 
enshrine  a  sad,  and  not  too  common  an  experience  in 
life: 

QUA  CURSUM  VENTUS 

As  ships,  becalmed  at  eve,  that  lay 
With  canvas  drooping,  side  by  side, 

Two  towers  of  sail  at  dawn  of  day 

Are  scarce  long  leagues  apart  descried ; 


50  Fo\jir  Victorian  Poets 

When  fell  the  night,  up  sprung  the  breeze, 
And  all  the  darkling  hours  they  plied, 

Nor  dreamt  but  each  the  self-same  seas 
By  each  was  cleaving,  side  by  side : 

E'en  so — but  why  the  tale  reveal 

Of  those,  whom  year  by  year  unchanged, 

Brief  absence  joined  anew  to  feel. 

Astounded,  soul  from  soul  estranged  ? 

At  dead  of  night  their  sails  were  filled, 
And  onward  each  rejoicing  steered — 

Ah,  neither  blame,  for  neither  willed. 
Or  wist,  what  first  with  dawn  appeared ! 

To  veer,  how  vain !  On,  onward  strain, 
Brave  barks !    In  light,  in  darkness  too. 

Through  winds  and  tides  one  compass  guides- 
To  that,  and  your  own  selves,  be  true. 

But  O  blithe  breeze  ;  and  O  great  seas. 
Though  ne'er,  that  earliest  parting  past. 

On  your  wide  plain  they  join  again. 
Together  lead  them  home  at  last. 

One  port,  methought,  alike  they  sought. 
One  purpose  hold  where'er  they  fare, — 

O  bounding  breeze,  O  rushing  seas ! 
At  last,  at  last,  unite  them  there. 


I  may  liave  quoted  more  of  this  poetry  than  is  in 
proportion  in  a  short  essay,  but  I  feel  that  Clough  has 
been  too  much  neglected ;  and  the  reading  of  the  whole 
of  this  intimate  history  of  a  soul,  struggling  to  light  in 
a  time  of  great  spiritual  trouble,  is  likely  to  be  of 
use  to  many  who,  in  our  changed  circumstances,  are 
going  through  a  similar  kind  of  trouble,  and  for 
similar  reasons,  which  Clough  went  through. 


ArtHxir  HvigK  Clo\igK  51 

The  trouble  did  not  last  all  his  life.  He  attained 
a  harbour  of  peace  when  he  took  life  by  the  right 
handles.  The  inward  storm  retreated  over  the  moun- 
tains, and  at  eventide  there  was  a  clear  quiet.  Had 
he  lived,  he  might  have  made  music  for  us  out  of  the 
peace  as  soft  and  clear  as  his  earlier  music  was  sad 
and  harsh,  and  yet,  in  the  harshness,  tender.  When 
he  was  less  within  his  own  soul — that  ill-fortuned 
dwelling  for  us — and  moved  in  and  out  among  men, 
his  hopes  for  man,  his  faith  in  God,  his  love  of  natural 
humanity,  revived,  and  with  them  came  restoration  of 
the  calm  he  had  lost.  Even  in  1849,  about  the  year 
he  left  Oxford,  where  self-contemplation  has  her  natural 
seat  for  those  who  care  for  it,  he  had  begun  to  look 
beyond  his  inner  soul  to  humanity,  and  to  think  that 
if  he  did  not  get  on,  others  might ;  if  truth  did  not 
dawn  on  him,  it  might  have  risen  on  others;  that  in 
the  world  there  might  be  fighters  who  had  won  the 
field,  though  he  had  been  put  to  flight ;  that  his  strife 
might  have  unconsciously  helped  them  to  their  victory ; 
that  the  struggle,  though  so  dark  and  despairing,  was 
not  without  its  good; — and  he  used  concerning  this 
more  hopeful  thought  a  noble  image  in  the  poem  I 
now  quote.  What  the  image  suggested  became  true 
as  the  years  of  the  century  went  on.  It  is  even  truer 
now.  We  have  a  closer,  more  faithful  grasp  on  truth 
than  Clough  could  have;  we  have  a  diviner  and  a 
clearer  hope.  And  what  the  last  verse  says  was 
realised  also,  one  is  glad  to  think,  in  his  own  life. 


$2  Four  Victorian  Poets 

Say  not,  the  struggle  nouglit  availeth, 
The  labour  and  the  wounds  are  vain, 

The  enemy  faints  not,  nor  faileth, 

And  as  things  have  been  they  remain. 

If  hopes  were  dupes,  fears  may  be  liars ; 

It  may  be,  in  yon  smoke  concealed, 
Your  comrades  chase  e'en  now  the  fliers,  \ 

I  And,  but  for  you,  possess  the  field. 

For  while  the  tired  waves,  vainly  breaking. 

Seem  here  no  painful  inch  to  gain. 
Far  back,  through  creeks  and  inlets  making. 

Comes  silent,  flooding  in,  the  main. 

And  not  by  eastern  windows  only, 

When  daylight  comes,  comes  in  the  light ; 

In  front,  the  sun  climbs  slow,  how  slowly. 
But  westward,  look,  the  land  is  bright. 

These  happier,  more  hopeful  words  belong  to  1849. 
He  died  in  186 1.  A  kinder,  gentler,  more  delicate 
soul  has  rarely  lived  among  us.  The  Tennyson  chil- 
dren used  to  call  him  the  Angel-child.  His  fantastical 
spirit,  his  finer  thought  which  would  have  liked  to 
have  danced  on  life's  common  way,  the  Ariel  in  him, 
would  seem  to  have  fitted  him  for  fairyland,  were  it  not 
that  the  sore  trouble  of  the  world,  and  the  mystery 
of  God's  way  with  it,  were,  in  that  tempest-tossed 
time,  too  much  for  him.  He  was  forced  to  enter  the 
battle  with  eyes  which  saw  too  many  things  at  the 
same  time.  The  confusion  might  have  overwhelmed 
him,  but  the  other  side  of  his  nature  came  to  his  help. 
His  light-heartedness,  it  is  true,  departed,  save  at 
happy  intervals,  but  he  never  allowed  its  absence  to 


Arthur  H\igH  ClougK  S3 

injure  his  association  with  his  friends.  '  And  then,  to 
meet  his  distress,  he  had  great  allies  within — profound 
love  of  and  belief  in  truthfulness,  no  self-deceit  ever 
touched  his  soul ;  a  set  and  honest  manliness,  a  rooted 
scorn  of  the  temptations  and  the  base  things  of  the 
world ;  a  great  love  of  freedom  and  a  deep  sympathy 
with  men  who  strove  for  it;  a  soul  which  honoured 
the  ideals  and  the  vital  causes  of  humanity ;  a  love  of 
natural  life  and  a  longing  to  see  the  divine  in  it ;  a 
fresh  delight  in  the  sweetness  and  beauty  of  earth  and 
sky  and  sea ;  and  a  humility  which  touched  with  its 
grace  all  whom  he  met.  His  sarcasm,  which  grew  out 
of  the  bitterness  of  his  struggle,  out  of  his  silent,  pas- 
sionate, tormented  inner  life,  bit  only  on  himself,  and 
spared  the  world;  and  when  it  fell  on  the  world's 
follies,  it  was  so  mixed  with  happy  humour  that  it 
half-healed  the  wound  it  gave.  He  had  his  martyr- 
dom, but  he  was  martyred  for  us,  and  the  blood  of 
these  martyrs  is  the  seed  of  that  invisible  Church  which 
rises  yearly,  beyond  all  our  creeds  and  scepticisms,  into 
fuller  weight  and  power. 

His  literary  position  is  rather  a  solitary  one.  He 
has  no  parents  and  no  children.  I  seem,  however, 
to  trace  in  some  of  his  religious  poems  the  poetic 
influence  of  Keble.  What  is  plain  is  :  that  he  stands 
between  the  absence  of  art  in  poetry  which  marked 
men  like  Bailey  and  Alexander  Smith — in  their  long, 
uncomposed,  intemperate,  and  self-conscious  poems — 
and  a  man  like  Matthew  Arnold,  who  made  a  study 


54  Foxir  Victorian  Poets 

of  his  art,  who  was  excessively  conscious  of  being  an 
artist,  who  worked  out  a  theory  of  his  art  on  the  bed 
of  which,  like  Procrustes,  he  strained  out  or  shortened 
his  poems ;  who  rarely,  therefore,  was  spontaneous  ; 
who  questioned  his  emotion  till  it  grew  cold  instead  of 
yielding  to  the  angels  of  impulse  whose  wings  brushed 
his  shoulder,  and  whose  celestial  colours  glimmered 
before  his  eyes.  Arnold's  act  was  too  ^ jponsdoilS  of 
itself  to  be  great  art,  but  he  forced  the  lesser  poets 
of  his  time  to  study  and  practise  their  art  with  con- 
scientious care.  In  our  own  time  we  have  had  some- 
what too  much  of  the  art  of  poetry  pursued  as  if  it 
were  a  science.  In  many  ways  it  has  passed  into  the 
artificial ;  but  also  since  his  time  no  poet  has  dared  to 
neglect  it,  dared  to  write  without  care  and  study  of 
what  has  been  done  in  the  past  by  the  great  masters. 
But  he  did  this  more  by  his  art-criticism  in  prose  than 
by  art-example  in  his  poetry.  He  was  an  artist  in 
poetry  more  by  study  than  by  nature. 

Clough  wrote  side  by  side  with  Arnold,  but  was 
not  influenced  by  Arnold's  demand  for  artistic  ex- 
cellence. He  wrote  what  came  to  him  with  all  the 
carelessness,  but  without  the  natural  genius  of  Walter 
Scott.  He  did  not  obey,  though  he  knew,  what 
noble  art  demanded.  Yet,  he  reached  a  certain  place 
among  the  poets.  And  he  owed  this,  I  think,  to  the 
steady,  informing,  temperance-insisting  culture  of  a 
great  university.  He  was  a  scholar  and  had  studied 
and  loved  the  Greek    and  Roman  models  of  what 


I 


ArtHxjir  Hvig'K  Clovig'H  55 

high  poetry  is.  He  might — since  he  had  no  poetic 
genius,  only  a  gentle  and  charming  talent — have  been 
enslaved  by  a  scientific  art,  a  slavery  from  which 
genius  saves  a  man,  and  have  become  one  of  the 
literary  prigs  of  poetry  who  prate  of  art  but  cannot 
practise  it;  who  gain  the  whole  world  of  a  clique's 
applause  and  lose  their  soul  as  poets.  He  was  saved 
from  this  by  the  strength  of  the  passion  with  which  he 
wrote,  by  his  truthfulness  which  did  not  condescend 
to  modify  his  work  and  by  his  love  of  clearness.  But 
though  he  had  this  one  artistic  merit  of  clearness,  he 
was,  unlike  a  true  artist,  indifferent  to  beauty,  to  ex- 
cellence, to  delicate  choice  and  arrangement  of  words 
and  music.  He  spent  no  trouble  on  his  work.  His 
poetry,  therefore,  with  all  its  personal  charm,  remains 
in  the  porch,  not  in  the  temple  of  the  Muses. 

That  was  his  position,  and  it  was  just  as  well,  for 
the  sake  of  the  minor  poetry  of  the  time,  and  for  the 
sake  of  the  poets  who  were  to  follow,  that  Matthew 
Arnold  set  himself  deliberately  to  ask  what  art  ought 
to  do  in  poetry,  in  what  it  consisted,  what  was  its 
right  aim,  and  what  were  its  fitting  subjects.  His 
poetry,  then,  its  relation  to  his  time,  what  he  was  as 
a  poet,  what  ideas  and  what  delight  were  in  his  poetry, 
is  the  matter  of  the  following  essay. 


MATTHEW  ARNOI.D 

MATTHEW  ARNOIyD,  who  is  loved  as  a  poet 
by  so  many  of  us,  and  justly  loved ;  whom 
we  do  not  read  continuously  as  we  read  the 
greater  poets,  but  who  suits  us  so  well  in  certain 
circumstances  of  the  inner  life ;  who,  in  them,'  reflects 
and  strengthens  us ;  whose  poetry,  always  unimitative 
and  underived,  rose  clear  out  of  his  own  soul ;  who 
stood  alone  with  an  ill-hidden  scorn  for  other  English 

^/poetry  in  his  eyes — ^was  worthy  of  more  acceptance  as 
a  poet  than  he  received  in  his  lifetime,  and  has  his 
own  distinct  chair  in  the  general  assembly  and  church 
of  the  first-bom  of  England. 

He  was  unfortunate  in  the  time  in  which  be  began 
to  be  a  poet,  if  any  man  who  has  a  strong  will,  a  i 
clear  aim,  a  joyous  temper,  and  a  bold  faith,  can  be  '^ 
called  unfortunate  at  any  time.  Arnold  had  a  strong -r;;- 
will,  but  it  was  not  strong  enough  to  master  within  j 
himself  the  sceptical  spirit  of^his  age  (which,  however      [ 

^^-^^seful,  is  not  poetical),  or  the  unpoetic  spirit_of  self-       ^ 
analysis,  which,  in  men  of  the  poetic  temperament,       ) 
naturally  accompanies  the  habit  of  scepticism.     In- 

^  quiry  is  a  good  thing,  but  it  is  prosaic.      It  is  true 

that  Arnold  grew  into  a  clear  aim,  but  he  was  at  first 

56 


MattHeiw^  Arnold  57 

too  contemptuous  of  the  world  in  which  he  lived, 
and  too  apart  from  it  to  give  it  that  sympathy  with 
its  goods,  which  is  one  of  the  needs-be  of  a  poet's 
power.  He  had  courage,  but  it  was  not  the  courage  / 
of  faith  or  of  hope ;  he  had  little  firm  faith  or  hope  in  j 
God,  or  in  man,  or,  I  may  say,  in  himself.  He  had 
insight  into  the  evils,  the  dulness,  the  follies,  the 
decay,  and  death  of  the  time  at  which  he  wrote ; 
but  he  had  little  insight  into  its  good,  into  Jhejhopes 
and  ideas  which  were  arising  in  its  darkless,  or  the 
life  which  was  collecting  itself  together  under  its 
decay.  His  temper,  therefore,  was  not  joyous^  nor  *^ 
was  it  in  sympathy  with  the  temper  of  the  whirling 
but  formative  time  in  which  he  began,  and  continued, 
to  write  poetry.  I  do  not  say  he  was  at  daggers 
drawn  with  the  elements  of  his  world;  he  did  not 
fight  with  them  in  the  fierce  way  in  which  Byron  and 
Shelley  fought  with  those  of  their  day ;  but  he  sat  apart 
from  them  in  a  silent,  brooding,  wrathfiil,  even  con- 
temptuous opposition.  When  he  spoke  against  them 
in  poetry,  it  was  not  so  much  to  attack  or  vilify 
them,l3Ut  to  glorify  the  spirit  which  was  the  enemy  of -^^^ 
their  turbulence.)  He  did  not  see  the  elements  of  life 
and  of  far-off  peace  in  the  turbulence,  and  he  never 
gave  it  sympathy.  At  times  he  could  not  bear  it,  and 
he  fled  away,  like  Qbermann,  into^^e  solitudes  of 
nature  to  commune  with  his  own  soul.  It  was  not  a 
wise  thing  to  do,  but  he  thought  it  eminently  wise; 
and  perhaps  it  was  the  only  thing  he  was  then  capable 


1^ 


S8  Kour  Victorian  Poets 


1 


of  doing.  In  later  life  he  modified  his  view  and  felt 
that  he  had  been  too  quick  to  condemn  his  world. 
But  he  was  too  proud  to  say  that  he  had  then  been 
too  blind  to  be  able  to  divide  the  good  from  the  evil  in 
the  turmoil,  or  that  he  had  not  then  seen  its  good. 

His  earlier  poetry  then — since  he  and  his  world  were 
so  inharmonious— was,  with  a  few  exceptions,  too  much 
a  poetry  of  opposition.  He  could  not  sufficiently  dis-,g. 
^  entangle  himself  from  the  pressure  of  his  age,  and  he^i 
hated  that  pressure.  Under  it  his  poetry  contended, 
mourned,  and  analysed.  And  it  suffered,  as  poetry, 
from  this  perturbing  element.  Had  he  possessed  the 
animation,  like  that  of  birds  in  spring,  which  marks 
the  great  poets,  he  would  have  neutralised  this  element. 
But  he  had  it  not ;  he  could  not  lift  himself  into  that 
bright,  magnanimous  air,  in  whose  clearness  a  poet 
sees,  and  is  able  to  love  and  help,  the  good  as  well  as 
the  evil,  the  joy  as  well  as  the  trouble,  of  humanity. 

Arnold  sat  by  the  tomb  where  he  thought  the  true 
life  of  England  lay  dead,  and  mourned  over  its  dis- 
appointed hopes.  He  did  not  hear  the  angel  of  the  nation 
say,  *'  What  is  best  in  England  has  arisen,  and  has 
gone  before  you  into  Galilee.'*  It  was  not  his  to  un- 
derstand— *'Iyet  the  dead  past  bury  his  own  dead.'* 
Only  at  intervals  the  clouds  lifted  for  him,  and  he  saw 
through  mist  the  flush  of  dawn  ;  but  he  had  not  heard 
enough  to  follow  that  gleam.  He  had  settled  down  in 
^^  these  early  days  into  a  stoic  sadness,  as  yet  unillumin- 
ated  by  humour.     It  had  a  certain  moral  force,  a  grim 


I 


MattKe-w  Arnold  59 

tenacity  of  duty,  a  stern  resolution  to  fight  on,  were  the 
heavens  themselves  to  fall ;  and  this  makes  his  poetry- 
dear  and  useful  to  men  and  women  even  now  who  may 
still  be  in  his  condition.  But  the  condition  did  not  de- 
velop his  art,  as  it  might  have  been  developed  in  a 
happier  world.  Absence  of  joy  limited,  it  even  maimed,  ^ 
his  creative  energy.  It  repressed  in  him  the  powers  of 
faith,.and  hope.  And  the  want  of  these  powers,  with- 
out which  creativeness  is  weak,  prevented  him  all  his 
life  long  from  being  as  complete  or  as  great  a  poet  as 
either  Tennyson  or  Browning. 

Without  the  full  energy  of  these  powers,  his_poetry 
suffers  in  melody,  in  charm,  in  unconsciousness,  in 
natural  exquisiteness  of  expression  (there  is  some  art- 
exquisitiveness  of  expression),  in  imaginative  ardour, 
except  when  he  was~wnting  mournfully.  In  the  | 
elegy,  where  his  genius  was  quite  at  ease,  he  is  excel-  \ 
lent.  Nothing  better  has  been  done  in  that  way  for  ! 
two  centuries  than  the  Scholar  Gipsy  and  Th^rsis.  In- 
deed, all  his  best  verse  has  this  elegiac  note,  or  nearly 
all.  I  should  like,  among  a  few  others,  to  except 
the  Strayed  Reveller^  into  the  inconsequence  of  whose 
enchanted  intoxication  I  wish  he  had  oftener  wandered. 

It  was  a  pity,  then,  he  was  so  unfortunate  in  the 
time  at  which  he  began  and  continued  to  write,  for 
had  he  not  been  burdened  with  its  fierce  questionings 
and  turmoil,  had  he  found  himself  in  an  age  of  sweet- 
ness and  Hght,  when  life  was  keen  and  keen  for  high 
things,  he  had  been  a  greater  poet.     He  might  then 


6o  Yoxir  Victorian  Poets 

have  spoken  to  the  universal  in  man,  * '  seen  life 
steadily  and  seen  it  whole,'*  as  he  said  of  Sophocles. 
Steadily  he  did  see  it,  but  not  as  a  whole.  That  he 
could  not  do.  He  is  the  poet  of  a  backwater,  of  a 
harbour,  of  a  retired  garden,  not  of  the  full,  swift  river, 
not  of  the  open  sea,  not  of  the  king's  highway.  He  is 
SQ  far  like  Hamlet  that  he  was  not  able  to  grasp  the 

/.- '  nettle  of  the  world  so  that  it  shouMnot  sting.  The 
sad,  philosophic,  poetic  imagination  of  Hamlet  was 
also  his,  but  he  had  more  moral  power,  a  closer  grasp 
on  realities,  than  Hamlet.  And  he  had  this  power 
because  he  clasped  stoicism — which  Hamlet  could  not 
K^do — to  his  breast. 
"p>^  The  power  of  stoicism  lies  in  the  appeal  it  makes  to 
the  moral  endtirance  of  the  soul  in  resolute,  unviolent 

^   resistance  to  the  tyranny  of  outward  and  inward  evil.^ 
It  bids  us  claim  our  moral  individuality  as  the  con- 
queror of  fate  and  of  the  outward  world.     The  claim  is 
high,  and  uplifts  the  character  of  the  claimer.      "The 

^  fates^e_hard  on  me,'*  the  stoic  says,  "  but  they  shall 
not  subdue  my  soul.  Things  are  dark  as  night,  but 
there  shall  be  light  within.  Pain  is  here,  but  it  does 
not  touch  my  real  self.  It  is  not  I  that  suffer,  but  the 
shell  of  me.  L  I  do  not  understand  why  the  world  is  so 
wrong  and  so  troubled,  but  one  thing  I  do  understand, 
that  /  need  not  be  wrong  or  troubled,  and  that  I  will 
not  be.  I  The  furies  of  the  gods  may  hunt  me  down, 
but  my  soul  remains  unconquered,  even  by  the  gods." 
There  is  no  doubt  of  the  power  which  is  hid  in  that 


MattKe-w  Arnold  6i 

position,  and  it  has  transferred  itself  to  a  great  deal  of 
Arnold's  poetry.  It  makes  his  language  resonant, 
clear ;  his  thought,  his  matter,  weighty  ;  and  it  brings 
into  his  poetry  a  moral  passion  which  at  times  reachesr' 
a  lofty  exaltation.  Moreover,  its  spirit  proceeds  out- 
ward from  the  poetry,  as  should  be  the  case  with  any 
fine  art  work,  into  the  lives  of  a  number  of  men  and 
women  who  are  battling  with  fate,  who  do  not  under- 
stand why  things  are  so  awry,  who  find  no  brightness 
in  life,  but  whose  soul  passionately  answers  the  stoic's 
appeal  to  keep  themselves,  in  spite  of  fate,  unsubdued 
in  right,  clear  in  their  own  thought,  and  unconquered 
by  evil.  *  *  I  am  I,"  they  say,  **  and^verjrthing  else  is 
indifferent."  It  is  to  that  class  of  men  and  women 
that  Matthew  Arnold  speaks  with  power,  and  will 
continue  to  speak,  it  may  be,  for  centuries  to  come. 

But  this  power  has  the  weakness  which  follows  on 
pride.  It  thinks  itself  powerful,  and  in  the  thought 
loses  some  of  its  strength.  If  it  belong  to  an  artist,  it 
makes  him  not  only  intrude  it  into  his  art,  but  also 
over-conscious  of  the  artist-elements  in  his  nature. 
Arnold  shared  more  than  was  fitting  in  this  weakness, 
and  it  lowers  the  excellence  of  many  of  his  poems.  It 
helps  to  place  him  below  the  poets  who  are  unconscious, 
in  the  rush  of  their  creation,  of  themselves  ;  who,  lost 
in  the  glory  and  grief  of  what  they  see,  break  into 
song  without  knowing  why  or  how  they  sing  ;  whose 
work  is  prideless,  for  they  behold  face  to  face  the  infin- 
ities of  that  they  try  to  express  ;  who  leave  any  work 


62  Foiar  Victorian  Poets 

they  have  finished  behind  them  without  considering  it, 

and  pass  on,  unconcerned,  to  new  things.     Rarely,  if 

ever,  does  Arnold's  poetry  make  that  impression  upon 

I  us.     It  has  too  much  pride  in  itself;  it  is  too  self-con- 

"X  I  scions  of  its.artistk_effprt,  and  this  lowers  its  imagina- 
I  tive  power ;  and  too  conscious  of  its  being  moral  and 
teaching  morality,  and  this  lowers  its  influence  as  art. 

Then,  again,  the  stoic  position  which  gave  him  the 
power  of  which  I  have  spoken,  made  him  weak,  on 
another  side,  as  a  poet.  It  often  isolated  him  too  much 
from  the  mass  of  men,  vefy^  few  of  whom  are  stoics 
either  in  philosophy  or  practice.     A  certain  touch  of 

i^  contempt  for  ordinary  humanity  entered  into  his  work. 
His  appeal  was  so  far  to  the  few,  not  to  the  many ; 
to  a  class,  not  to  the  whole ;  to  tlie  self-centred,  not  to 
those  who  lose  their  self  in  love.  In  this  way  also, 
he  became  too  self-inyolved,  and,  troubled  with  the 
restlessness  and  noise  of  man,  took  refuge  in  the  soli- 
tudes of  his  own  heart.  Owing  to  this  self-involve- 
ment— ^which,  though  it  was  modified  towards  the  end 
of  his  poetic  life,  was  an  integral  part  of  his  nature — 
he  was  very  rarely,  if  ever,  swept  by  any  high  passion 
out  of  himself  altogether.  He  could  not  feel,  till  later 
in  life,  the  greater  waves  of  human  emotion,  save  once 
perhaps  with  regard  to  England's  vast  imperial  toil, 
breaking  upon  his  heart.  Into  the  infinite  hopes,  the 
infinite  possibilities  of  man — into  that  country  where 
the  greater  poets  live,  his  early  poetry  entered  only 
for  moments,  and  then  his  sceptical  sdf-consciousness 


MattKe-w  Arnold  63 

recalled  him  from  it,  and  bade  him  consider  how  little 
the  history  of  his  own  soul  supported  the  far-off  hopes 
for  man  into  which  he  had  been  momentarily  hur- 
ried by  poetic  imagination.  The  highest,  the  most 
inspiring  passion  which  can  thrill  a  poet  was  therefore 
not  his  in  the  first  years  of  his  poetry.  This  self- 
involvement  and  this  isolation  from  the  universal  hope 
of  man  are  the  great  weakness  inherent  in  stoicism, 
and  when  they  belong  to  an  artist,  they  enfeeble  his 
art.  Only  by  drinking  incessantly  at  the  deep  wells  of 
common  humanity  does  a  poet  win  the  power  to  rejoice 
in  his  creative  work,  and  the  love  which  enables  him 
to  continue  it  till  old  age.  Arnold,  in  the  end,  even 
though  he  did  gain  much  self-forgetful  sympathy  with 
humanity,  found  his  poetic  power  fail.  His  vein  was 
exhausted.  He  took  to  prose.  But  the  greater  men, 
not  isolated  from  but  intimately  mixed  with  all  meni 
if  not  in  life,  yet  by  the  imagination  of  love  ;  not  self- 
involved  but  self-forgetful — love  the  whole  movement 
of  mankind,  even  the  noise  and  restlessness  of  it, 
appeal  to  and  win  the  universal  love  they  give,  are 
always  impassioned  by  the  divinity  which  they  see 
everywhere  in  man,  think  nothing  common  or  unclean, 
and  live,  eagerly  creating  to  the  close. 

However,  there  is  something  to  say  on  the  other 
side.  Arnold  was  too  human  to  be  the  finished  stoic. 
The  stoic  demand  for  duty,  for  obedience  to  the  eternal 
laws  of  right,  was  always  with  him.  It  often  fills  his 
poetry  with  an  austere  beauty.     It  keeps  much  of  its 


64  Foxir  Victorian  Poets 

dignity,  even  in  poems  where,  like  a  serpent  round 
the  witch  it  loves,  he  winds  round  and  round  himself 
and  saves  them  from  failure.    So  far  he  was  pure  stoic. 

But  the  stoic  demand  of  indifference  to  pain  and 
trouble,  of  the  independence  of  the  soul  of  all  the  fates 
of  men — Arnold  could  not  fulfil.  His  stoicism  broke 
down  into  sadness  for  himself  and  for  the  world.  The 
pain  was  too  great  not  to  cry  out,  not  to  afflict  the 
soul.  It  sought  expression,  and  it  found  it  in  his 
poetry. 

The  stoic  might  think  this  a  weakness,  unworthy  of 
a  philosopher.  But  in  a  poet,  this  deep  emotion  of  sad- 
ness, felt  in  himself  and  for  himself,  but  felt  far  more 
for  the  labouring  and  laden  world,  is  not  a  weakness 
but  a  strength.  A  poet  may  have  a  philosophy,  but 
the  proper  mistress  of  his  house  is  poetry.  If  his  phi- 
losophy seek  to  be  mistress,  poetry  shakes  her  celestial 
pinions,  and  flies  away.  But  when  Arnold,  violating 
his  stoicism  expressed  his  pain  with  cries,  his  phi- 
losophic weakness  became  poetic  strength.  He  came 
back  to  high  natural  art  and  feeling ;  he  did  the  natural 
thing ;  and,  indeed,  it  is  one  of  the  paradoxes  of  life, 
the  truth  of  which  the  stoic  forgets  or  does  not  know, 
that  till  pain  is  expressed,  it  cannot  be  fully  conquered. 
The  stoic  who  hides  it  in  his  breast  or  pretends  that  it 
does  not  exist,  never  conquers  it  or  its  evil.  But  the 
poet,  expressing  pain  as  well  as  pleasure,  becomes  at 
one  with  all  who  feel  pain.  Conscious  then  of  his 
brotherhood  with  man,  and  far  more  conscious  of  it 


MattHevr  Arnold  6$ 

than  by  sympathy  only  with  man's  pleasure,  strength 
and  passion  flow  into  his  poetry.  Men  feel  themselves 
expressed,  sympathised  with,  and  empowered  by  the 
noble  representation  of  their  trouble,  and  send  back 
to  the  poet  their  gratitude  and  sympathy,  till  he, 
conscious  of  their  affection,  is  himself  uplifted  and 
inspired.  Then  his  poetic  power,  fed  by  human  love, 
increases.  A  fuller  emotion,  a  wider  thought,  a  know- 
ledge of  life,  deepened  by  imagination  into  something 
far  more  true  than  any  intellectual  philosophy  of  life 
can  give, — fill  his  verse  with  the  unsought  for,  reveal- 
ing phrases,  which  seem  to  express,  with  strange  sim- 
plicity, the  primary  thoughts  of  Being,  to  speak  from 
the  secret  place  where  the  laws  of  the  universe  abide. 

^The  stoic  tends  to  be  unhuman,  but  is  continually 
like  Arnold  self-humanised;  and  the  breakdown  of 
Arnold's  stoicism  into  sadness  for  the  world,  and  his 
expression  of  it,  was  a  progress  in  him,  not  a  retro- 
gression.) The  higher  levels  of  song,  where  joy  lives 
because  of  the  presence  of  faith  and  hope,  he  did  not 
reach ;  but  this  mingling  in  his  poetry  of  stoicism  and 
of  the  sad  crying  which,  denies  stoicism,  of  the  spirit 
which  isolates  itself  from  the  crowd  of  men  in  lonely 
endurance  and  the  spirit  which  breaks  down  from  that 
position  into  sympathy  with  men,  gives  to  Arnold's 
poetry  a  strange  passion,  a  stimulating  inconsistency, 
an  element  of  attractive  surprise — the  atmosphere 
x:hanging  from  poem  to  poem  and  within  the  same 
goem— and  a  solitary  distinction.     No  other  poet  is 


^ 


66  Fovjr  Victorian  Poets 

built  on  the  same  lines.  Few  have  been  so  self-centred, 
and  none  pleases  us  more  whenever  we  are  in  that 
mood  in  which,  dividing  ourselves  from  all  mankind, 
we  choose  to  cherish  our  own  personality,  to  sit  in  its 
silent  chambers,  to  reject  the  Not-me,  to  believe  that 
in  our  own  being  is  the  universe,  that  nothing  exists 
beyond  ourselves.  To  that  strange  mood,  which  may 
have  its  good  if  it  last  a  short  time,  but  which  has  cer- 
tainly its  own  naughtiness,  Arnold  speaks,  and  has 
revealed  its  thoughts  in  a  poetry  full  of  subtle  and 
impassioned  charm.  £lt  came  out  of  the  depths  of  his 
nature ;  but  he  could  not  always  remain  in  these  soli- 
tudes of  the  soul.  He  fled  from  them  into  sympathy 
with  the  sorrow  and  confusion  of  men ;  and  the  ming- 
ling of  these  twa  opposites — and  they  are  frequently 
mingled,  even  in  single  poems — gives  this  uncommon 
note  of  distinction  to  his  poetry^ a  human  cry,  shrill 
and  piercing  as  of  a  soul  divided,  beating  between  two 
moods,  and  angry  with  the  indecision.  The  instru- 
ment on  which  he  plays  is  like  a  violin  played  by  a 
regretful  artist  in  a  lonely  room. 

These  are  considerations  concerning  his  poetry 
which  arise  out  of  his  character.  There  are  others 
which'  arise  from  the  condition  of  the  world  when  he 
began  to  write.  It  was  a  time  (and  I  repeat  what  I 
have  already  said  in  writing  of  Clough),  when  the 
Id  foundations  of  the  Christian  faith  were  no  longer 
accepted  without  inquiry.  They  were  dug  down  to, 
exposed  to  the  dry  light  of  science,  and  to  a  searching 


1 


MattKe-w  Arnold  67 

iosestigation.  The  criticism  of  German  scholars  had'^ 
thrown  the  gravest  doubt  on  the  history  of  the  Gospels ; 
scientific  discoveries  and  historical  criticism  had  in- 
vaded the  Old  Testament ;  and  both  had  begun  to 
shatter  that  belief  in  the  inspiration  of  the  Bible  on 
which  so  much  of  English  religion  reposed  in  peace. 
The  stormy  waves  these  investigations  awakened  had 
reached  Oxford  when  Arnold  and  Clough  were  stu- 
dents, and  they  were  first  disturbed,  then  dismayed, 
and  finally  thrown  into  a  scepticism  which  profoundly  ,- 
troubled  them.  Their  skies  were  darkened ;  the  old 
stars  had  gone  out  in  the  heavens,  and  no  new  stars 
had  arisen.  They  staggered  blindly  on,  and  at  last  fell 
back  on  their  own  souls  alone,  on  the  unchallengeable 
sense  of  right  they  felt  therein,  on  the  imperative  of 
duty  and  on  resolution  to  obey  it.  Nothing  else  was 
left.  But  much  more  had  been  ;  and  it  was  with  bit- 
ter and  ineffable  regret  that  they  looked  back  on  the 
days  when  they  were  at  peace,  when  the  sun  shone 
upon  their  way.  With  what  intimate  naivete  Clough 
expressed  this  trouble,  and  what  cure  he  found  for  it, 
has  been  already  considered.  With  Clough  it  was  ex- 
tremely personal.  Arnold  generalised  it  far  more  ;  he\ 
extended  its  results  all  over  life ;  it  drove  him  in  after  I 
days,  not  now,  to  consider  world-wide  questions,  the  r 
fates  and  fortunes  ot  the  whole  race.     ~ 

Fifteen  years  after  his  earliest  book  of  poetry  he 
emerged  from  the  trouble  I  have  described.  His  long 
strife  ended  in  a  quiet  force  which  looked  steadily  on 


68  Four  Victorian  Poets 

the  problems  of  life.  He  looked  with  eyes,  purged 
from  personal  consideration,  at  the  pressure  of  every 
kind  of  trouble  on  the  human  family,  and  asked  why 
it  was  and  to  what  end.  And  he  never  let  the  question 
go  till  he  found  his  solution  for  it,  and  gave  it  to  the 
world  in  hope  that  it  might  help  and  comfort  others. 
In  the  process,  he  reconstituted,  for  himself,  the 
theology  of  his  youth.  And  then,  feeling,  as  he  did, 
that  in  faith  in  God,  in  worship,  in  a  right  and  grace- 
ful spirit  of  love,  and  in  righteousness  of  conduct,  was 
the  true  foundation  of  life,  he  devoted  himself,  in 
prose,  to  clear  away  from  religion  those  forms  of  it 
which  violated  intellectual  or  moral  truth,  and  to 
establish  what  was  eternal  in  it,  beyond  controversy, 
^  and  fitted  for  God  to  be,  and  for  man  to  believe  and 
love.  With  that,  into  which  he  passed  from  poetry, 
we  have  nothing  to  do  here.  What  we  are  in  contact 
with  now  is  his  early  religious  trouble,  and  its  distress 
breathes  through  all  his  youthful  poetry. 

Again — and  this  belongs  to  his  personal  feeling 
against  mob  turbulence  and  chattering  theories- 
Oxford,  when  he  was  there,  was  filled  with  the  noise 
of  controversy  between  the  High  Churchmen  and  their 
opponents.  Both  were  intolerant  one  of  another,  and 
the  battle  raged  with  confused  tumult,  not  only  be- 
tween these  two  hot-headed  parties,  but  also  between 
both  of  them  united  against  the  Neologians,  as  the 
critical  school  was  then  called.  Clough,  greatly  dis- 
turbed by  the  loss  of  his  faith,  was  not  much  disturbed 


I 


MattHe-w  Arnold  69 

by  the  noise  of  the  contest  in  which  he  lost  it.  He 
rather  liked  the  smoke  and  the  roar  of  fighting;  the 
revolutionary  atmosphere  he  breathed  with  pleasure. 
But  Arnold  was  of  another  temper.  He  hated  noise, 
quarrel,  confusion  ;  he  loved  tranquillity,  tolerance, 
clearness,  plainness,  moderation,  ordered  thought, 
and  passions  brought  under  control,  especially  those 
passions  which  belong  to  theological  contests  of  the 
intellect.  He  had  much  ado  to  keep  down  his  natural 
abhorrence  of  this  tumultuous  shouting  about  things 
which  even  then  seemed  to  him  to  have  nothing  to  do 
with  the  weightier  matters  of  the  Law  or  the  Gospel. 
*'  It  is  a  sorrowful  time,"  he  might  have  said,  **  to  live 
in  ;  the  outward  noise  about  things  indij6ferent  doubles 
my  inward  trouble." 

Then  again,  the  year  before  he  published  his  first 
volume  of  poems,  the  whole  continent  was  disquieted, 
and  even  England  shared  in  that  disquiet.  France, 
Italy,  Germany,  Austria  broke  into  revolution;  the 
Chartist  movement  threatened  revolution  in  England. 
The  accredited  order  which  in  18 15  had  restored  so 
many  of  the  evils  the  French  Revolution  had  shaken, 
was  again  (to  leave  out  1830)  broken  into  by^  popular 
fury,  and  with  a  confusion  of  thought  and  an  ignorance 
of  what  was  to  replace  the  old,  which  jarred  on  every- 
thing which  Arnold  thought  wise  and  practical. 
Clough  liked  it ;  he  wrote  rejoicingly  from  Paris,  with 
whose  revolution  he  lived ;  he  stayed  at  Rome  when 
the  people  set  up  a  republic  and  fought  the  French. 


70  Foxir  Victorian  Poets 

But  Arnold  had  no  belief  in  the  popular  cries,  and  he 
hated  the  disturbance  and  the  noise.  Out  of  these,  he 
thought,  no  salvation  comes.  And  weariness  of  the  tur- 
moil fell  upon  him,  and  desire  that  he  had  been  bom  at 
another  and  a  quieter  time.  By  this  also  his  personal 
sadness  was  deepened,  and  it  drove  him  into  a  longing_ 
^for  solitude  and  calm  outside  the  tortured  world^ 
We  can  trace  these  impressions  all  through  his  first 
three  volumes  of  poems ;  and  we  can  read  what  was 
his  temper  with  regard  to  revolutionary  Europe  in 
the  two  sonnets  addressed  to  Clough,  entitled  To  a 
Republican  Friend.  The  first  says  how  far  he  agrees 
with  his  friend,  and  it  would  not  have  been  thought 
worth  much  by  the  enthusiasm  of  Clough.  The  sec- 
ond says  where  he  parts  from  his  friend  ;  and  it  is  full 
of  his  suppressed  anger  with,  and  disbelief  in,  the 
revolutionary  movement.  More  impressive  than  these, 
more  personal,  expressing  that  which  was  deepest  in 
him  at  this  time,  that  which  he  most  desired — and 
more  important  for  our  knowledge  of  him,  because  he 
chose  it  as  a  preface  to  his  third  volume,  published 
three  years  after  his  first — is  the  sonnet  with  which 
the  volume  of  1849  opens  :— 

One  lesson,  Nature,  let  me  learn  of  thee. 
One  lesson  which  in  every  wind  is  blown, 
One  lesson  of  two  duties  kept  at  one, 
Though  the  loud  world  proclaim  their  enmity — 
Of  toil  unsevered  from  tranquillity ! 

To  work    with    Nature's    constancy,   but   without 
turbulent  passion  ;  like  her  sleepless  ministers  ' '  Their 


II 


MattHe-w  Arnold  71 

glorious  tasks  in  silence  perfecting."  To  stand  agart 
from  fierce  explosions  like  the  Revolution  was  his 
desire,[but  he  forgot  that  Nature  sometimes  works  by 
explosions,  relieving  by  them  her  over-burdened  breast, 
and  that  revolutions  are  in  a  strict  analogy  with  her 
volcanic  outbursts.]}  Yet  Arnold  would  have  disliked 
Nature's  catastrophes  and  blamed  her  for  them.     His  A 

work  was  to  be,  he  hoped,  done  with  patience,  trusting 
his  own  soul,  choosing  one  clear  aim,  and  confident 
that  in  following  it  sincerely  he  would  best  assist  the 
world.  It  was  for  that  he  praised  the  Duke  of 
Wellington.  He  had  a  vision,  Arnold  thought,  of  the 
general  law,  saw  what  he  could  and  could  not  do,  and 
followed  the  one  thing  he  saw.  That  made,  among 
all  the  fret  and  foam  of  Europe  acting  without  sight 
of  a  clear  goal,  the  splendour  of  his  place  in  history. 
But  to  fulfil  this  resolve  clearness  of  vision  was  the 
great  need,  that  clearness  which  all  his  life  was 
Arnold's  deep  desire.  In  a  noble  sonnet.  To  a  Friend^ 
he  asked  who  are  they  who  support  his  mind  in  these 
bad  days  ?  They  are  Homer,  whose  clear  soul,  though^?  -^^ 
his  eyes  were  blind,  saw  man  and  life  so  well ;  and,  for  4^^^ 
the  inner  strength  of  the  soul,  Epictetus,  whose  friend- 
ship he  had  lately  won  ;  and,  for  the  just  and  temperate  ^ 
view  of  life,  Sophocles — 

Whose  even-balanced  soul, 
From  first  youth  tested  up  to  extreme  old  age, 
Business  could  not  make  dull,  nor  passion  wild; 
Who  saw  life  steadily,  and  saw  it  whole. 


72  Fo-ur  Victorian  Poets 

all  Greeks; (for  Arnold  bent  his  poetic  effort  to  that 
Hellenic  spirit  which,  by  temperance  and  the  okamess 
ensuing  from  it,  and  by  the  desire  to  make  the  world 
better,  made  the  artist-work  of  the  Greeks  so  nearly 
perfectj 

But  to  return  to  the  sonnet  on  Nature  {Quiet  Work). 
It  is  plain  that  its  view  of  Nature  is  quite  different 
from  that  of  the  poets  who  preceded  Arnold.  It  con- 
tains that  scientific  conception  of  Nature,  already  far 
more  than  half  embodied,  which  declared  that  all  its 
developments  could  be  correlated  under  one  energy 
and  were  forms  of  that  energy,  ourselves  included. 
Belief  in  this  theory  made  a  mighty  change  in  all 
poetry  written  by  men  who  were  sufficiently  educated 
to  realise  it,  and  it  influenced  a  good  deal  of  Arnold's 
poetry  from  the  beginning  to  the  end.  Not  altogether ; 
he  slipped  out  of  the  theory  where  it  pleased  him.     At 

le  point,  even  now  (and  this  is  illustrated  in  another 

sonn&t— In  Harmony  with  Nature)^  he  rebelled  against 

it,  at  the  point  where  it  subjected  man,  as  only  a  part 

of  Nature,  to  its  law.     He  was  willing  to  be  taught 

by  the  course  of  Nature.     He  was  not  willing  to  be 

mingled  up  with  her. 

Jl  Know,  man  hath  all  that  Nature  hath,  but  more, 
V  And  in  that  more  lie  all  his  hopes  of  good. 

We  are  different  from  her ;  we  move  on  in  a  straight 
line,  he  might  have  said,  Nature  goes  round  and 
round.  "We  begin,"  he  did  say,  *' where  Nature 
ends ' '  ;  and  he  recurs  elsewhere  to  the  same  thought. 


I 


MattHe-w  Arnold  73 

These  are  some  of  the  cries  of  his  first  poems,  when 
he  was  but  twenty-seven.  It  is  plain,  then,  that  the 
racking  trouble  of  man's  disobedience  to  law,  his 
necessary  restlessness,  and  the  confused  noise  that 
attended  it — in  contrast  with  Nature's  obedience,  tran- 
quilUty,  and  steady  toil — were  heavily  pressed  on 
Arnold  by  the  circumstances  of  his  time.  He  found 
no  solution  of  the  problem  now,  none  in  reasoning, 
none  in  warring  religions  and  philosophies.  "  I  will 
listen  no  more  to  them,"  he  thought;  **I  will  fall 
back  on  my  own  soul ;  know  the  worst  and  endure  it 
austerelj^  holding  fast  to  the  power  of  righteousness 
Tgithin.  Of  that  I  may  be  sure.  The  will  is  free,  the 
seeds  of  Godlike  power  are  in  us.  Within,  we  may  be 
what  we  will." 

This  did  not  solve  the  question,  but  it  gave  a  noble 
basis  for  life,  and  the  worry  of  the  question  might  be 
laid  by.  What  we  can,  we  will  secure.  Then  wait, 
and  as  the  world  goes  on  the  question  may  solve  itself. 
At  least,  if  the  solution  come,  those  who  wait  quietly 
in  patient  righteousness  obeying  law,  will  be  capable 
of  seeing  it.  Even  if  we  are  mixed  up  with  a  blind 
Nature,  with  matter  alone,  have  ourselves  no  divine 
origin,  and  no  end  beyond  the  elements,  there  is  that 
in  us  which  is  ready  for  either  fate,  and  which  is  above 
both,  and  can  choose  how  to  meet  the  one  or  the  other. 
There  is  a  remarkable  poem — Itl  Ultrumgue  Paratus — 
which,  on  a  higher  poetic  level  than  most  of  the  other 
poems  in  this  first  volume,  puts  this  view  before  us. 


74  Fo\jr  Victorian  Poets 

It  begins  by  supposing  that  the  universe  has  its  course 
in  God's  thoughts— 

If  in  the  silent  mind  of  One  all  pure, 

At  first  imagined  lay 
The  sacred  world  ;  and  by  procession  sure 
From  those  still  deeps,  in  form  and  colour  drest, 
Seasons  alternating,  and  night  and  day, 
The  long-mused  thought  to  north,  south,  east,  and  west 

Took  then  its  all-seen  way. 

If  this^  be  true,  and  thou,  man,  awaking  to  the  con- 
sciousness that  the  world  of  Nature  is  thus  caused 
of  God,  wishest  to  know  the  whole  of  life  and  thine 
own  life  in  it,  oh,  beware.  Only  by  pure  and  solitary 
thought  thou  shalt  attain,  if  thou  canst  attain  ;  and 
the  search  will  sever  thee  from  the  pleasant  human 
world  into  a  painful  solitude.  The  verse  in  which 
Arnold  tells  this  is  so  prophetic  in  its  excellence  of 
his  best  poetry,  so  full  of  his  distinctive  note,  that  I 
quote  it : — 

Thin,  thin  the  pleasant  human  noises  grow  ; 
And  faint  the  city  gleams  ; 

Rare  the  lone  pastoral  huts — marvel  not  thou ! 

The  solemn  peaks  but  to  the  stars  are  known. 

But  to  the  stars,  and  the  cold  lunar  beams  ; 
.   Alone  the  sun  arises,  and  alone 
I       Spring  the  great  streams. 

But  if  this  be  not  true,  and  Nature  has  never  known  a 
divine  birth,  and  thou,  man,  alone  wakest  to  conscious- 
ness of  a  great  difference  between  thyself  and  Nature — 
thou,  the  last  and  radiant  birth  of  earth's  obscure  work- 
ing— oh.  beware  of  pride.     Think  that  thou  too  only 


Matthew  Arnold  75 


hou  1 
ide,  J 


seemest ;  art,  like  the  rest,  a  dream.    Yet,  since  thou 
canst  think  that^  since  thou  mayst  control  thy  prid 
thou  standest  clear  of  Nature. 

So,  once  he  saw  the  problem  of  human  life.  Then, 
tossed  as  he  was  from  thought  to  thought  in  those  days 
when  evil  things  held  sway,  he  recurred,  in  another 
sphere  of  thought,  to  his  view  of  the  necessity  for  the 
steady  pursuit  of  one  aim,  clearly  conceived  in  the 
soul.  Here,  he  mingled  it  up  with  one  of  the  common 
angers  of  men  who  suffer  and  know  no  reason  for  their 
pain — an  anger  which  no  doubt,  had  stirred  in  him  at 
intervals.  He  took  the  story  of  Mycerinus,  and  treated 
it  with  a  brief  nobility  of  imaginative  and  sympathetic 
thought  which  was  rare  in  so  young  a  poet.  The 
king's  father  had  been  unjust,  cruel,  a  wicked  king. 
He  had  lived  long  and  happily.  The  son  had  believed 
in  justice,  kindness,  good  government,  and  practised 
them ;  yet  the  gods  condemned  him  todie  in  six  years^ 
He  had  governed  himself,  sacrificed  himself,  and  this 
was  his  reward  for  giving  up  the  joy  of  life.  "  Then 
have  I  cleansed  my  heart  in  vain."  There  is  then^o^ 
justice,  no  morality  in  the  gods.  Or_thev  are  them- 
selves slaves  of  a  necessity  beyond  them,  or  careless,  in 
their  leisured  pleasure,  ot  mankind.  I  scorn  them ; 
and,  men  of  Egypt,  if  you  wish  to  please  them,  do 
wrong,  indulge  in  injustice,  be  like  my  father,  then 
they  will  give  you  length  of  days.  For  me,  I  will  give 
my  six  years  to  revel,  to  youthful  joys,  and  so  farewell. 

Nor  does  Arnold,  in  that  passing  mood,  altogether 


76  Four  Victorian  Poets 

blame  him.  ^At  least,  the  king  knew  his  aim  and  fol- 
lowed itr  ^  It  is  curious  to  read  the  lines  in  which 
Arnold  expresses  this.  He  would  not  have  approved 
the  life,  but  he  approved — since  the  king  had  deliber- 
ately chosen  that  life— the  firmness  and  clearness  of  his 
choice,  the  settled  purpose  of  his  soul — 

he,  within, 
Took  measure  of  his  soul,  and  knew  its  strength, 
And  by  that  silent  knowledge,  day  by  day. 
Was  calmed,  ennobled,  comforted,  sustained. 

But  this  was  the  only  point  at  which  he  approved 
the  king's  life  of  pleasure.  In  T^e^Nezn^irenSy  which 
fine  as  it  is  in  parts  is  feeble  as  a  whole,  he  seems 
to  express,  with  obscure  length,  the  gloom,  sati- 
ety, and  sorrow  of  the  soul  in  which  mere  pleas- 
ure ends,  the  reckless  following  of  impulse  after 
impulse. 

Another  poem  of  far  higher  quality,  called  Tke 
Voice,  dwells,  in  the  two  last  verses,  on  the  same 
thought  with  a  noble  brevity  and  imagination.  It 
records  an  hour  when  the  ancient  cry  of  youth  to  fulfil 
all  joy  came  to  him  out  of  a  forgotten  time,  came 
to  him  when  his  heart  had  been  long  sobered  by 
dreary  and  doubtful  thought,  by  heavy  circumstance. 
Sweet  and  far,  in  strange  contrast  with  his  present 
trouble,  like  a  wanderer  from  the  world's  extremity, 
it  asked  again  to  be  listened  to.  And  his  answer  is 
given  in  lovely  poetry,  in  passionate  revelation  of 
himself: — 


MattKe-w  Arnold  77 

In-  vain,  all,  all  in  vain, 

They  beat  upon  my  ear  again, 

Those  melancholy  tones  so  sweet  and  still. 

Those  lute-like  tones  which  in  far  distant  years, 

Did  steal  into  mine  ear — 
Blew  such  a  thrilling  summons  to  my  will. 

Yet  could  not  shake  it ; 
Made  my  tost  heart  its  very  life-blood  spill,  * 

Yet  could  not  break  it. 

In  these  many  ways  lie  turned  the  problem  of  life. 
One  would  think  that  among  them  there  would  be, 
brought  up  as  he  had  been,  a  cry  for  freedom  and 
salvation,  an  appeal  to  the  Power  who  is  with  us  in 
the  night.  Once  at  least,  and  suddenly  as  it  seems, 
Arnold,  in  the  mouth  of  Stagirius,  a  young  monk 
to  whom  St.  Chrysostom  addressed  three  books, 
made  this  cry.  We  cannot  miss  the  personal  passion 
in  these  verses,  nor  fail  to  feel  that  they  are  the  out- 
burst of  long-endured  distress  which  having  tried 
many  ways  of  escape  in  vain,  fled  at  last  to  the 
fatherhood  of  God.  *'I  do  not  know  Thee  clearly," 
they  seem  to  say,  *'  but  there  is  that  within  me  which 
bids  me  take  my  chance  with  Thee." 

Finally,  to  close  the  eventful  history  of  this  voltune, 
there  is  the  last  poem,  entitled  Resignation.  It  re- 
presents that  to  which  the  struggle  had  brought  him, 
what  he  thought  the  wisest  manner  of  life,  the  groove 
in  which  he  desired  to  move  onwards. 

*  Note. — In  the  first  edition  this  line  is  better  said : 
Drained  all  the  life  my  full  heart  had  to  spill. 


78  Fo\ir  Victorian  Poets 


I 


Ni 


He  wished  it,  but  in  vain.  But  it  never  ceased 
to  be  one  of  the  moods  of  life  in  which  he  desired  to 
live  at  intervals.  Yet  it  was  well  that  it  could  not  be 
a  continuous  desire.  Resignation  is  fitting  for  age,  for 
the  man  who  has  fought  in  the  battles  of  the  world 
for  fifty  years,  but  not  well  for  the  voung  whogofbrth 
to  battle^  And,  in  spite  of  Arnold's  wish  for  patient 
peace,  he  had  the  just  spirit  of  impatience  with  the 
evil  ideas  which  were  oppressing  the  world  in  which 
he  lived.  When  he  became  a  man,  he  was  always  a 
fighter.  Yet  those  who  fight  the  most,  most  long  at 
times  for  the  rest  of  resignation.  And  this  poem  is  his 
record  of  that  desire,  even  in  youth,  as  many  other 
poems  record  its  recurrence  in  the  years  that  were  to 
come. 

The  subject  is  worthy  of  poetry,  and  Arnold  has 
made  it  worthier  by  the  fine  composition  of  the  poem, 
and  especially  by  the  imaginative  fusion  in  it  of  the 
mental  and  natural  scenery.  The  illustrations,  the 
episode  of  the  gipsies,  the  phantom  grace  of  Fausta, 
develop  and  enhance  the  main  thought.  The  verse 
is  flowing,  and  the  scenery  of  that  walk  between 
Wythburn  and  Rosthwaite  which  many  know  so  well 
is  drawn  with  its  own  distinctive  touch  and  feeling. 
We  see,  as  we  read,  that  it  made  on  him  a  new  impres- 
sion on  this  day.  But  we  also  feel,  that  in  and  through 
the  new  impression,  the  old  impression  of  the  years 
before  is  mingled,  bringing  with  it  another  tenderness 
and  light, — and  this  is  a  delightful  piece  of  fine  art. 


MattHei^  Arnold  79 

Ten  years  before,  as  a  boy  of  seventeen,  he  had 
taken  the  same  walk  with  ^austa^  What  ten  years 
had  done  we  read  in  these  verses ;  and  the  many 
changes  and  wanderings  of  his  sonl  during  this  decade 
of  life  are  well  represented  by  the  windings  in  the 
poem  of  various  thoughts  within  the  unity  of  its  main 
thought.  The  lines  I  quoted  are  full  of  the  soul  of 
Arnold  at  twenty-seven.  Their  quiet,  self-controlled, 
and  solit^s^jjote,  with  theii^love  of  peace  and  obedir_ 
ence,  and  of  union  not  with  quarrelsome  particulars 
bufwith  the  still  movement  of  the  general  life  to  an 
ordered  and  luminous  end,  is  no  unfitting  close  to  the 
struggle  I  have  endeavoured  to  describe.  "Blame 
not, "  he  cries,  **  Fausta,  the  man  who  has  seen  into  life, 
and  who  has  attained  tranquillity,  but  for  thyself  " — 

Rather  thyself  for  some  aim  pray 

Nobler  than  this,  to  fill  the  day  ; 

Rather  that  heart,  which  burns  in  thee, 

Ask,  not  to  amuse,  but  to  set  free  ; 

Be  passionate  hopes  not  ill  resign'd 

For  quiet,  and  a  fearless  mind. 

And  though  fate  grudge  to  thee  and  me 

The  poet's  rapt  security, 

Yet  they,  believe  me,  -who  await 

No  gifts  from  chance,  have  conquer'd  fate. 

They,  winning  room  to  see  and  hear, 

And  to  men's  business  not  too  near, 

Through  clouds  of  individual  strife 

Draw  homeward  to  the  generaLlife. 

Like  leaves  by  suns  not  yet  uncurl'd ; 

To  the  wise,  foolish  ;  to  the  world. 

Weak  ; — yet  not  weak,  I  might  reply, 

Not  foolish,  Fausta,  in  His  eye, 


/ 


8o  Fovar  Victorian  Poets 

To  whom  each  moment  in  its  race, 

Crowd  as  we  will  its  neutral  space, 

Is  but  a  quiet  watershed 

Whence,  equally,  the  seas  of  life  and  death  are  fed. 


1 


The  second  volume  of  Matthew  Arnold's  poems  was 
published  in  1852,  and  its  title  was  Empedocles  on 
y  j^tna^  and  other  Poems,  by  A .  Bmpedocles,  a  Greek 
'  of  Sicily,  one  of  the  last  of  the  religious  philosophers, 
is  supposed  by  Arnold — in  a  preface  to  an  after-edition 
of  the  poem — '*  to  have  lived  on  into  a  time  when  the 
habits  of  Greek  thought  and  feeling  had  begun  to 
change,  character  to  dwindle,  the  influence  of  the 
sophists  to  prevail.  Into  the  feelings  of  a  man  so  situ- 
ated there  entered  much  we  are  accustomed  to  consider 
as  exclusively  modem  :  the  calm,  the  cheerfulness,  the 
disinterested  objectivity  of  the  genius  of  the  earlier 
Greek  have  disappeared ;  the  dialogue  of  the  mind 
with  itself  has  commenced ;  modem  problems  have 
presented  themselves  ;  we  hear  already  the  doubts,  we 
witness  the  discouragement  of  Hamlet  and  of  Faust." 

This  is  a  sufficient  description  of  the  poem,  and 
suggests  its  motive.  It  enabled  Arnold  to  express,  on 
the  lips  of  Bmpedocles,  the  problems  which  confronted 
him  in  his  own  time,  to  tell  with  a  certain  passion  how 
he  felt  concerning  them,  to  relieve  his  heart  by  giving 
words  to  the  profound  discouragement  and  confusion 
into  which  they  put  his  soul,  and  to  suggest  what 
means  of  escape  from  their  tyranny  occurred  to  him. 
Bmpedocles  escapes  by  flinging  himself  into  the  crater 


MattKew^  Arnold  8i 

of  ^tna.  :  Had  Arnold  been  a  Greek  lie  might,  perhaps, 
have  shuffled  off  his  trouble  in  the  same  easy  fashion. 
When  a  man  is  brave,  is  sick  of  mankind,  and  recog- 
nises no  duty  to  God,  suicide  is  almost  too  facile  a 
business.  { 

The  representation  of  a  man  beset  by  such  feelings 
and  pains,  if  he  is  stem  enough  with  himself  to  repre- 
sent them  truly,  cannot  be  without  interest,  or  even 
without  passion ;  but  their  representation,  if  too  elab- 
orate, becomes  wearisome.  And  Empedocles  goes  over 
his  troubles  at  such  a  severe  length  that  it  is  fortunate 
he  is  alone  save  with  Pausanias,  who  is  only  a  shadow. 
Callicles  would  have  tired  of  him.  Moreover,  he  sings 
them  in  so  lumbering  a  metre  that  we  begin  to  conjec- 
ture that  the  entangled  melancholy  of  his  mind  had 
unconsciously  influenced  his  ear,  and  dulled  it  out  of 
tune.  These  were  the  real  reasons,  I  think,  why  the 
poem  displeased  its  writer.  But  they  were  not  the 
reasons  he  gave  for  leaving  it  out  in  the  volume  issued 
in  1853,  ^^d  issued,  for  the  first  time,  under  his  own 
name.  He  left  it  out,  he  said,  because,  though  the 
representation  was  interesting,  it  did  not  inspirit  and 
rejoice  the  reader,  and  poetry  was  bound  not  only  to 
add  to  the  knowledge  of  men,  but  also  to  add  to  their 
happiness. 

**The  Muses,"  said  Hesiod,  "were  born  to  be  a 
forgetfulness  of  evils,  and  a  truce  from  cares."  This 
happiness  may  be  felt  in  the  representation  of  the 
most  tragic,  even  tortured,  situations,  provided  they 

6 


82  Foxir  Victorian  Poets 

are  full  of  the  permanent,  noble,  and  primary  passions 
of  human  nature,  passing  onwards  into  magnanimous 
action,  whether  of  endurance  of,  or  of  resistance  to, 
human  or  divine  oppression — into  action  which  awakens 
high  passion  and  action  in  others.  Such  action,  repre- 
sented in  poetic  form,  kindles  high  pleasure  in  us, 
however  painful  the  situation. 

In  Empedocles  there  is  no  such  action.  A  **  con- 
tinuous state  of  mental  distress  was  prolonged  in  it " ; 
the  atmosphere  was  morbid,  and  the  unhappi- 
ness  monotonous.  It  was  not  then  a  fit  subject  of 
poetry  and  Arnold  excluded  the  poem  from  his  next 
book. 

This  is  a  very  grand  reason  for  so  simple  a  matter  as 
the  poem  of  Empedocles  on  yEtna,  and  indeed  it  might 
lay  itself  open  to  some  slight  ridicule.  It  is  an  example 
of  that  overweening  self-consciousness  of  himself  as  an 
artist  which  sometimes  deprived  his  poetry  of  natural- 
ness and  of  spontaneity.  The  real  reason  was  that 
Empedocles  bored  him,  and  no  wonder;  and  that 
Arnold,  under  the  mask  of  Empedocles,  exposing  all  his 
present  woes,  confusions  and  wanderings  of  thought, 
his  hatreds  and  scorns  of  his  time,  had  begun  to  bore 
himself.  Again,  the  Empedocles  of  the  poem  is  quite 
petulant  with  the  Universe,  and  especially  with  that 
state  of  man  which,  having  vast  desires  and  conceiving 
noble  ideals,  is  disenabled  by  the  gods,  and  apparently 
on  purpose,  to  reaHse  them.  It  may  be  that  this  petu- 
lance, when  Arnold  came  afterwards  to  read  of  it, 


MattHew  Arnold  83 

displeased  his  proud  taste:  it  certainly  did  not  fit  in 
with  his  stoicism. 

Two  years  after  he  wrote  Empedocles^  in  1853,  ^^^ 
was  in  a  more  healthy  state  of  mind.  He  wrote  about 
the  problems  of  life  and  their  trouble,  but  he  wrote 
about  them  in  short  lyrics,  some  of  which  ended  with 
hope,  even  presaged  joy.  Later  on,  many  years  later, 
when  his  foot  was  on  firmer  ground,  and  some  sunlight 
in  his  sky,  he  restored  Empedocles  to  its  place  in  his 
collected  work,  at  the  instance  of  Robert  Browning. 
When  he  left  it  out,  his  soul  was  too  near  the  ship- 
wreck of  Kmpedocles  to  relish  its  representation.  He 
was  tossed  to  and  fro  on  the  deep,  close  to  the  rocks. 
But  when  he  had  escaped,  it  was  not  unpleasant  to  see 
the  picture  he  had  made  of  old  of  the  storm  and  the 
labouring  ship,  and  to  hang  it  up  as  a  votive  tablet  in  a 
shrine  of  the  gods  of  the  sea. 

Again,  Kmpedocles  accuses,  and  with  all  the  weak- 
ness of  his  type,  the  hopeless  confusion  to  which  the 
gods  have  brought  the  soul  of  man ;  and  then,  remem- 
bering his  philosophy,  scoffs  at  himself  and  all  the 
complainers  whom  the  course  of  nature  and  their  own 
thought  have  enslaved.  At  last,  in  a  transient  excite- 
ment, having  persuaded  himself  that  he  is  free, — and 
before  the  persuasion  fails  him,  and  lest  it  should — he 
finishes  his  worry  by  the  medicine  of  the  volcano. 
Arnold  did  not.  He  fought  his  way  through  to  no 
petulant  conclusion,  to  no  excited,  hurried  surrender 
of  the  battle.    In  1867,  when  after  an  interval  of  fifteen 


84  Four  Victorian  Poets 


years,  he  republished  Empedocles  on  ^tna,  he  had 
grown  into  a  wiser  but  sorrowful  calm.  It  was  not 
the  calm  of  the  stoic,  but  of  one  who,  realising  with 
passion  the  sorrow  of  humanity  yet  looked  forward 
with  hope,  even  at  times  with  a  chastened  joy,  to  its 
redemption.;  lyife  at  least  was  worth  the  living;  the 
battle  was  to  be  without  despair.  It  pleased  him  then, 
now  that  his  feet  were  set  on  a  rock  and  his  goings 
ordered,  to  republish  this  picture  of  his  youth  and  its 
disordered  wavering,  to  realise  afresh  how  much  he 
had  gained.  Moreover,  it  pleased  the  artist  in  him  to 
feel  through  all  the  wailing  of  the  poem,  the  freshness 
of  youth  in  it,  its  intensity  and  the  pleasure  of  its  pain. 
Even  when  it  was  written,  the  poem  was  not  all 
melancholy  or  monotonous.  Callicles  lives  in  it  as 
well  as  Empedocles — Callicles,  the  lyrist  and  the  poet, 
young  and  exulting  in  his  youth,  inspired  by  the 
beauty  of  Nature  and  the  romantic  stories  of  Greece, 
loving  women  and  song,  feasting  and  the  dance- 
incarnate  joy — ^yet  tender  of  heart,  wise  through  rever- 
ence of  wisdom,  and  with  that  deep  common  sense 
which  bom  of  love  and  imagination  is  one  of  the  first 
attributes  of  genius.  When  Arnold  created  him  he 
was  half  way  to  a  higher  region  of  thought,  feeling, 
and  action  than  he  could  ever  have  attained  by  stoic- 
ism on  the  one  hand,  or  by  wailing  and  indignation  on 
the  other.  But  he  did  not  create  him  excellently.  It 
is  a  thing  half  done — half  flesh  and  blood,  half  marble, 
like  the  poor  prince  in  the  Arabian  Nights.     Callicles 


\ 


MattKew  Arnold  85 

is  but  a  voice,  not  a  living  young  man  ;  the  voice  only 
of  the  half-reaction  in  Arnold's  mind  towards  life  and 
untroubled  joy.  Callicles  sings  of  what  he  sees :  of 
the  pleasant  outside  of  thing^s^  of  the  lovelineiss  of  Na- 
ture.  and  of  the  natural  life  of  men  and  animals,  but 
the  descriptions  are  a  little  too  literary.  He  sings,  and 
better,  of  the  beautiful  legends  of  Greece,  of  Cadmus 
and  Harmonia,  of  Apollo  and  Marsvas,  of  the  ^tnean 
giant,  of  the  singing  of  the  Muses,  with  youthful  sen- 
timent and  artist  charm ;  and  Arnold  thought  these 
songs  and  the  temper  of  them  so  good,  that  when  he 
repressed  the  poem,  he  extracted  and  published  some 
of  them  as  separate  lyrics.  Indeed,  these  two  regions, 
the  beauty  of  the  common  wor^~aTr^^^"  fTpr"^^  nhwi'ii'g- 
were  the  homes  where  Arnold  found  some  comfort  in 
his  trouble,  some  hours  of  refreshment.  They  saved 
him  from  himself  In  the  physical  peace  of  the  one, 
and  in  the  moral  peace  he  was  conscious  of  in  the 
other,  he  attained  so  much  of  the  resemblance  of  rest 
that  he  believed  in  its  possibility.  When  he  sgeaks  of 
natural  beauty  yhe^  loses  his  self-inquiring  self.  When 
he  tells  a  fair  or  noble  tale,  the  intellectual  snake  which 
was  gnawing  at  his  entrails  goes  to  sleep,  and  the 
frigid  weight  of  his  stoicism  was  lifted  off.  He  forgot 
himself— that  blessed  remedy  for  all  the  afflictions  of 
the  world.  IiTthe  Strayed  Reveller,  tlie  Forsaken  Mer- 
man^ the  King  at  Bokhara^  in  Sohrab  and  Rustum^ 
Balder  Dead,  Tristram  and  Iseult^  the  Church  at  Brou^ 
the  weary,  self-inquiring,  self-controlling  Arnold  does 


86  Fouir  "Victorian  Poets 

not  appear.     We  are  freed  from  him,  and  he  is  freed 
from  himself. 

This  is  the  noble  power  which  the  great  stories  of 
the  world  have  upon  us,  this,  their  healing  and  exalt- 
ing good.  They  release  the  soul  from  its  own  despot- 
ism. They  hush  the  heart  into  self-forgetfulness. 
They  fill  our  being  with  sorrow  and  with  joy  which 
are  not  our  own.    And  it  was  well  for  Arnold  that  he 

•^liii     --«■■  »li»r- 11,11  i-in 

felt  their  power.  It  was  one  of  the  enabling  elements 
in  his  battle  towards  peace  and  light.  It  took  him 
away  not  only  from  the  turmoil  in  his  own  soul,  but 
also  from  the  turmoil  without,  the  evil  of  which  he 
grossly  exaggerated.  He  was  fortunate  in  that ;  far 
more  fortunate  than  the  great  number  of  persons  whose 
souls,  even  now  after  so  many  years,  are  sensitive  to,  and 
whose  reason  is  troubled  by,  the  bitter  problems  of  life 
which  afflicted  him.  They  have  no  means  of  expres- 
sion ;  they  fight  alone  and  in  silence  the  grief  that 
would,  but  cannot  speak.  Arnold  at  least  had  the  gift 
/  of  expression,  and  he  rid  himself  by  his  art  of  a  great 
deal  of  his  distress.  No  sooner  did  some  aspect  of  the 
human  question  rise  threateningly  before  him,  aud 
mock  him,  than  he  put  it  into  a  poem.  It  is  really 
curious  how  many  of  the  short  lyrics  in  this  second 
volume  are  dedicated  to  fragments  of  that  problem. 
One  would  think  he  would,  after  Empedocles^ 
have  been  a  little  anxious  to  throw  ofi*  the  yoke  of 
inquiry,  a  little  tired  of  walking  up  and  down  the 
alleys  of  yew  within  his  soul ;  but  it  is  not  so.     He 


Matthew  Arnold  87 

had  an  undying  interest  in  himself  as  an  epitome 
of  man. 

I  will  touch  on  a  few  of  them.  One,  entitled  Human 
Life,  glances,  in  spite  of  its  important  title,  at  only  one 
experience  of  life.  We  would  fain  steer  our  ship  as  we 
please,  and  not  by  the  inward  law.  But  we  cannot 
live,  we  are  compelled  not  to  live,  by  chance  impulse. 
As  the  ship  leaves  behind  it  the  waves  it  divides,  so  we 
leave  behind  the  joys  not  designed  for  us,  the  friends 
not  destined  to  be  ours.  Unknown  powers  direct  our 
course  as  they  will,  not  as  we  will.  This  is  only  one 
small  fragment  of  the  riddle  of  human  life.  Its  title  is 
a  misnomer. 

Then  he  asks  himself  in  a  well-written  sonnet : 
Shall  I  be  glad,  when  I  am  growing  old,  that  the 
heats  of  youth  are  left  behind  and  I  at  peace  ?  No,  I 
shall  wish  its  agitations,  fire,  and  desire  back  again, 
and  sigh  that  nothing  is~left  to  youth  and  age  save  dis- 
content. This  is  a  common  human  cry,  but  it  belongs 
only  to  one  type  of  men,  and  even  they  do  not  feel  its 
passion,  save  at  intervals.  Browning  and  Tennyson 
would  not  have  come  to  that  conclusion,  nor  the  lovers 
of  mankind.    It  also  is  only  a  fragment  of  the  problem. 

In  §£lfJD£££jiiiQn  we  have  another  fragment.  We 
think  we  have  great  powers,  and  expect  to  realise 
their  ends.  We  may  have  had  them  in  an  antenatal 
world,  and  been  as  eager  then  to  use  them  towards 
their  perfection  as  we  are  now.  But  the  Great  Power 
who  gave  us  them,  imposed  on  us  a  rigid  law,  and  the 


88  Four  Victorian  Poets 

law  baffled  us.  And  when  He  sent  us  liere  He  left  us 
only  the  stress  of  them,  and  yet  their  full  desires.  And 
we  know  we  shall  never  win  their  fulfilment.  Yet, 
there^  is  a  power  which^rules,iis,  and  there  is  a  chance 
l^T^  that,  the  vaguest  of  chances,  but  a  chance.  This  is" 
tEe  Kmpedocles'  argument  over  again,  and  it  is  inter- 
esting to  contrast  it  with  Browning's  view  of  the  same 
aspect  of  the  problem.  Browning,  looking  out  of  him- 
self with  love  upon  humanity,  saw  far  and  clear  the 
certain  end  which  the  inabilities  of  life  suggested,  and 
to  which  they  led.  Arnold,  loving  the  personalities  of 
his  own  soul  more  than  man,  saw  at  this  time  of  his  life 
only  one  dim  chance  for  man.  Gross  is  the  film  which 
self-consideration  draws  over  the  eyes  of  the  spirit. 

Take  another,  Lines  at  a  Death  Bed.  The  face  of 
the  dead  is  calm.  The  settled  loveliness  of  rest  is  there. 
Is  this  the  end  of  life  ?  this  the  attainment  of  its  desire  ? 
Is  youth  so  fresh  and  bright  because  of  the  hope  of  rest 
in  death  ?  No,  youth  desires  light  and  joy,  life  and 
passion,  here,  on  this  side  of  death — 

Calm 's  not  life's  crown,  though  calm  is  well. 
'T  is  all  perhaps  that  man  requires, 
But  *tis  not  what  our  youth  desires. 

This,  too,  is  but  a  fragment  of  the  problem,  enough  for 
a  lyric,  and  an  unfinished  one. 

Take  another — take  Courage.  Our  business  here  is 
to  tame  the  will  to  Nature's  law.  Renounce,  or  en- 
dure, keeping  the  soul  free  from  fear  or  shame.  That 
is  his  stoicism  ;  but  there  is  room,  Arnold  thought,  for 


Y> 


Matthew  Arnold  89 

another  side  of  the  question ;  he  could  not  altogether 
fix  his  thought  into  the  stoic  limits.  Now,  in  these 
bad  times,  he  cries,  when  fate  and  circumstance  are 
strong,  praise  the  strong  for  their  defiant  courage,  even 
though  they  do  not  live  under  the  law  of  right — and 
here  he  recurs  to  the  motive  of  Mycerinus — praise  the 
younger  Cato,  praise  Byron,  for  their  dauntlessness. 
For  what  we  want  now  is  force  of  soul,  even  in  the 
things  which  in  themselves  are  blameable.  Our  bane 
is  faltering,  indecision.  We  may  see  clear,  but  can  we 
act  forcibly  ?  That,  too,  is  only  a  fragment  of  the 
problem  of  life,  a  little  lyric  cry. 

Then  there  is  the  poem  of  ^If- Dependence — a  piece  of 
modem  stoicism.  I  say  modem  because  the  Nature  I 
Arnold  dwells  on— gTature  as  the  revealer  of  law  mov- 
ing in  the  universe  in  quietude,  and  teaching  us  obedi- 
ence and  its  calm — is  a  thought  the  ancients  only 
conjectured. ^  They  had  no  knowledge  of  the  constancy 
of  energy.  The  close  applies  to  himself  the  teaching  of 
Nature. 


\ 


O  air-bom  voice  !  long  since,  severely  clear 
A  cry  like  thine  in  mine  own  heart  I  hear  : 
"  Resolve  to  be  thyself ;  and  know  that  he, 
Who  finds  himself,  loses  his  misery." 


It  is  a  thought  which  grows  out  of  the  stoic  position, 
out  of  that  weary  reference  to  the  soul  alone  as  the^ 
source^  of  ^stren^h,  that  pride  engendering  self-con- 
sideration, which,  isolating  a  man,  enfeebles  love,  and, 
if  the  gods  do  not  interfere,  slays  it  altogether.      Who 


90  Fcur  Victorian  Poets 


finds  himself  loses  misery  !  Nay,  I  answer,  gains  it 
Who  loses  himself,  he  alone  loses  misery,  and  it  is  the 
only  way  to  lose  it.  That,  too,  is  the  poem  of  a 
fragment  of  the  problem. 

Kensington  Gardens^  a  lovelier  poem,  has  the  same 
thought  at  its  root.  He  contrasts  the  peace  of  the 
quiet  meadows,  trees,  and  water  with  the  impious  and 
raving  uproar  of  men,  the  sound  of  which  he  vaguely 
hears.  Here  is  quietude,  always  new  ;  the  sheep,  the 
birds,  the  flowers,  the  children  sleep.  Calm  soul  of 
all  things,  he  cries,  give  me — 

The  will  to  neither  strive  nor  cry, 
The  power  to  feel  with  others  give; 

Calm,  calm  me  more ;  nor  let  me  die 
Before  I  have  begun  to  live. 

Peace!  I^ike  Dante,  but  without  his  power,  Arnold 
sought  for  peace.  Could  he  now  have  loved  more, 
could  he  have  more  fulfilled  his  prayer  to  feel  with 
others  more  than  with  himself,  could  he  have  not 
had  that  foolish  desire  to  know  himself— the  utmost 
thing  the  Pagan  reached — he  would  soon  have  gained 
it.  "  Know  thyself,"  said  Socrates,  and  man,  because 
this  dictum  flattered  his  pride,  thought  it  the  ultimate 
wisdom.  It  is  rather  the  ultimate  foolishness.  The 
true  thing  to  say  is  this — ' '  Know  Nature,  man,  and  God ; 
get  outside  of  thyself  into  their  glory  and  beauty. 
Only  then,  thou  canst  begin  to  justly  know  thyself; 
only  then,  at  union  through  love  with  all  that 
is  without  thee,  lost  in  joy,  beyond  self-disturbance. 


\ 


MattHe-w  Arnold  91 

self-inquiry,  canst  thou,  in  humility,  attain  to  peace." 
Then  there  is  another  poem — The  Buried  Life — it' 
too,  touches  only  one  aspect,  one  fragment  of  the 
problem  of  life.  The  poem,  full  of  imaginative  beauty, 
has  also  its  deep  interest ;  it  touches  what  we  imagine 
in  the  mysticism  of  the  heart  of  the  subconscious 
stream  of  our  being  the  unexplored  tracts  of  our  na- 
ture, the  revealing  of  which  we  wait  for  so  long  and 
so  vainly.  Even  two  lovers,  Arnold  thought,  cannot 
tell  each  other  what  they  are.  They  would  if  they 
could,  but  their  buried  life  flows  on,  unseen,  unknown. 
Fate,  knowing  how  we  are  led  astray  by  the  apparent 
and  confused,  has  ordained  it  thus,  in  order  that  our 
truer  life  should  not  be  mastered  by  the  apparent  ; 
but  live  within  itself,  independent  of  the  world.  We 
are  beset  with  longing  to  find  our  actual  self.  In  vain 
we  strive ;  yet  could  we  find  it,  we  should  be  at  rest. 
Only  at  times,  fallings  fromuSv-Vanisliings,  air§^  float- 
ing echoes,  "as from  an  infinite  distant  land,"  reveal 
or  seem  to  reveal  the  heart  of  the  life  which  beats 
within : — 

A  bolt  is  shot  back  somewhere  in  our  breast, 

And  a  lost  pulse  of  feeling  stirs  again. 

The  eye  sinks  inward,  and  the  heart  lies  plain. 

And  what  we  mean,  we  say,  and  what  we  would,  we  know. 

A  man  becomes  aware  of  his  life's  flow ; 

And  hears  its  winding  murmur;  and  he  sees 

The  meadows  where  he  glides,  the  sun,  the  breeze. 

And  there  arrives  a  lull  in  the  hot  race 

Wherein  he  doth  for  ever  chase 

That  flying  and  elusive  shadow,  rest. 


92  Foxir  Victorian  Poets 

And  then  he  thinks  he  knows 
The  hills  where  his  life  rose, 
And  the  sea  where  it  goes." 

Another  aspect  of  the  same  thought  is  to  be  found 
in  the  poem — Palladium^  where  the  soul,  as  far  apart 
from  our  outward  life  as  the  Palladium  was  from  the 
battle  round  Troy,  is  pictured  on  its  lonely  height. 
When  it  fails  we  die,  while  it  lives,  we  cannot  wholly 
be  a  victim  of  the  world. 

The  best  of  all  these  battling,  fragmentary  poems  is 
4^ummer  Night,  Its  composition  is  good,  its  ar- 
rangement clear,  its  thoughts  well-shaped.  It  does 
not  wander  like  the  rest.  It  is  passionate  throughout, 
and  it  soars  to  a  climax  from  which  it  descends  in 
peace,  like  a  still  sunset  after  storm.  The  natural  de- 
scription with  which  it  begins  is  done  with  a  delicate 
purity  of  touch.  It  represents  Arnold's  temper  at  the 
point  where  it  was  changing  from  unmixed  sadness 
and  a  somewhat  fierce  contempt  of  the  world,  into  a 
better  and  wiser  mind,  into  a  greater  harmony  with 
mankind,  into  pity  for  men  with  a  touch  of  love 
in  the  pity;  into  some  hope,  some  faith  for  them,  and 
therefore  into  some  hope  and  faith  in  God. 

There  are  yet  other  poems  which  illustrate  this 
story  of  a  soul  in  those  troubled  years,  but  enough  has 
been  said  of  these  fragments.  The  essence  of  the  his- 
tory is  concentrated  in  the  Sjanza^JbiUileniorY  of  the 
Author  of  Obermann.  This  poem  places  Arnold  as  he 
was  in  1852.     Fifteen  years  later  his  position  was  not 


MattKe-w  Arnold  93 

the  same ;  and  he  records  the  change  in  another  poem 
in  1867,  addressed  to  the  same  person.  Obermann 
once  more.  The  similar  titles  make  it  plain  that  he 
intended  to  reveal  the  change  that  had  passed  over  the 
temper  in  which  he  viewed  the  world. 

Obermann,  as  Arnold  conceived  him  in  1852,  had 
fled  from  the  world,  in  which,  like  Arnold,  he  moved 
a  stranger,  to  find  what  peace  he  coul^i  \w  tTif^  pa.^tnral 
^lifc  of  SwitiLcrUnd,  and  in  a  chalet,  HTI  tllf  lowfr  hiHn, 
w}]enoe  hf  ^'^^  ^^^  solemn  snows  of  tTif>  ^ig-]]  pf^aV^t 
rise  in  ethereal  purjItiT  flflfl  '""^^  Nature,  in  her  quiet 
order,  might  heal  his  heart ;  and  though  Obermann' s 
pain  did  not  leave  him,  yet  he  saw  his  way  to  as  much 
peace  as  he  could  find  ;  and  for  that  threw  everything 
else  away.  And  that  was  some  attainment.  Only 
two  others,  Arnold  thought,  had  been  as  bold,  as 
self-certain  in  the  whole  of  Europe — Wordsworth  and 
Goethe  ;  and  Wordsworth  saw  only  half  of  human  life, 
and  Goethe's  clear  and  lonely  soul  few  of  the  sons  of 
men  could  follow.  But  our  time,  he  says  to  Obermann, 
is  worse  than  theirs — a  hopeless  tangle — and  we  turn 
for  help  to  the  immovable  composure  of  thy  icy  despair. 
Thou  hast  renounced  the  world  and  thy  life  in  it ;  at 
least  thou  hast  the  peace  of  renunciation,  and  the 
majestic  pleasures  which  Nature  brings.  £!Half  my 
soul  I  leave  with  thee  and  Nature,  but  the  other  half 
Fate  takes,  and  forces  it  to  abide  in  the  world.]^  May  I 
live  there,  like  thee,  unsoiled  by  wrong,  unspotted  by 
the  world,  and  bear  the  pain  of  these  miserable  days. 


94  Foxir  Victorian  Poets 

Rigorous  is  the  line  on  which  the  unknown  power 
drives  us  ;  we  cannot 

when  we  will  enjoy ; 
Nor  when  we  will,  resign. 

That  is  his  position  in  1852.  Many  years  passed  by, 
and  he  remembers  at  the  same  place,  where  Glion 
looks  down  on  Chillon  and  the  lake,  Obermann  once 
more,  and  slips,  in  a  moment  of  thought,  back  to  his 
old  desire  to  be  in  solitude  and  calm  with  him,  out  of 
the  warfare  he  has  waged  so  long.  He  recalls  the 
infinite  desire  of  his  youth — that  he  and  man  might 
reach  harmonious  peace  in  union  with  the  universal 
order. 

And  as  he  mused  night  came  down,  and  Obermann 
stood  beside  him — 

And  is  it  thou,  he  cried,  so  long 

Held  by  the  world  which  we 
Loved  not,  who  turnest  from  the  throng 

Back  to  thy  youth  and  me  ? 

Dost  thou  turn  now  to  me,  now  when  the  world  is 
being  new  born,  when  hopes  and  hearts  are  blossom- 
ing? The  history  of  the  world  is  the  history  of  the 
Rise  and  Fall  of  Ideas.  We  lived,  of  old,  when  one 
set  of  ideas  was  falling  into  fragments.  In  the  tur- 
moil and  confusion  we  could  find  no  sure  aim  for  life. 
We  despaired  and  fled  from  the  world.  But  now, 
is  not  the  Power  at  hand  which  will  reanimate 
humanity?  I  died  wrapped  in  gloom,  but  thou, 
who  sought  me  of  old,  do  not  thou  despair.    The 


MattKe-w  Arnold  95 

sun  is  risen  on  the  earth.    The  present  I  despaired 
of  held  in  it  resurrection  power.    But  thou — 

though  to  the  world's  new  hour 
Thou  come  with  aspect  marr'd, 
Shorn  of  the  joy,  the  bloom;  the  power, 
Which  best  befits  its  bard — 

Though  more  than  half  thy  years  be  past, 

And  spent  thy  youthful  prime  ; 
Though,  round  thy  firmer  manhood  cast, 

Hang  weeds  of  our  sad  time 

Whereof  thy  youth  felt  all  the  spell, 

And  traversed  all  the  shade — 
Though  late,  though  dimm'd,  though  weak,  yet  tell 

Hope  to  a  world  new  made  ! 

Help  it  to  fill  that  deep  desire, 

The  want  that  rack'd  our  brain, 
Consumed  our  soul  with  thirst  like  fire. 

Immedicable  pain ; 

Which  to  the  wilderness  drove  out 

Our  life,  to  Alpine  snow, 
And  palsied  all  our  word  with  doubt. 

And  all  our  work  with  woe — 

What  still  of  strength  is  left,  employ 

This  end  to  help  attain : 
One  common  wave  of  thought  and  joy 

Lifting  mankind  again. 

The  vision  ended.     I  awoke 

As  out  of  sleep,  and  no 
Voice  moved ; — only  the  torrent  broke 

The  silence,  far  below. 


And  glorious  there,  without  a  sound. 
Across  the  glimmering  lake, 

High  in  the  Valais-depth  profound, 
I  saw  the  morning  break." 


96  Fo\ir  "Victorian  Poets 


^ 


^ 


This  is  a  higher  strain,  but  the  redemption  was  not 
yet  fully  attained.  There  were  still  hours  of  deep  de- 
pression, following  on  noble  vision.  Men  recover  from 
illness  of  the  soul  with  relapses.  The  tide  ebbs  before 
it  floods  the  strand.  Oscillation  is  half  of  our  con- 
valescence. And  in  the  same  book — New  Poems — in 
which  these  second  Stanzas  to  Obermann  appear,  are 

rthe  Stanzas  from  the  Grande  Chartreuse,  1867.  The 
high  emotion  and  thought  of  a  heart,  worn  more  by 
sorrow  for  the  world  tlialTByltr own  p^,  fills  these 
verses  to  the  brim.  The  wisdom  of  joy  is  not  in  them, 
but  the  wisdom  of  pain  is.  Yet,  they  look  forward ; 
waiting  for  light  with  weary  eyes,  with  a  faint  hope 
which  has  at  least  slain  despair.  Meanwhile,  he  cries, 
while  we  wait  and  hope,  allow  us  our  tears,  our 
solitude,  our  absencefrom  the^ayer  world.  Let  its 
bright  procession  p^ss.  I<eave  us  to  our  monastic 
\  peace. 

Another  poem,  Dover  Beach — one  of  the  finest  he 
ever  wrote — is  also  a  poem  of  relapse  into  depression, 
I  but  so  profoundly  felt  that,  both  in  thought  and  ex- 
pression, it  rises  into  the  higher  regions  of  poetry.  He 
hears  the  "grating  roar  of  pebbles  which  the  wave 
sucks  back  "  with  the  ebb,  and  the  return  of  the  waves 
that  bring 

The  eternal  note  of  sadness  in. 
Sophocles  long  ago 
Heard  it  on  the  -^gean,  and  it  brought 
Into  his  mind  the  turbid  ebb  and  flow 
Of  human  misery. 


MattKe^v  Arnold  97 

He  hears  in  it,  as  in  the  silence  he  lives  over  again 
the  religious  tempest  he  had  suffered — the  retreat  of 
the  ancient  faith  in  unconquerable  sadness,  and  in  the 
sadness  the  whole  world  is  dark.  And  so  great  is  the 
darkness  that  while  he  lives  in  it  he  can  do  no  good  to 
the  world,  and  none  to  himself. 

Ah,  love,  let  us  be  true 

o  one  another  !  for  the  world,  which  seems 
To  lie  before  us  like  a  land  of  dreams, 
So  various,  so  beautiful,  so  new, 
Hath  really  neither  joy,  nor  love,  nor  light. 
Nor  certitude,  nor  peace,  nor  help  for  pain  ; 
And  we  are  here  as  on  a  darkling  plain 
Swept  with  confused  alarms  of  struggle  and  fight, 
Where  ignorant  armies  clash  by  night. 

This  temper,  now  in  1867,  was  not  a  constant  one. 
( Hope  for  the  world  and  for  himself  had  grown  almost 
into  flower  within  him  ;/  and  he  attained  through 
hopefulness  a  new  strength,  even  some  rest.  And 
then,  having  found  a  haven  where  he  could  anchor, 
and  looking  out  on  the  storm,  but  not  of  the  storm,  he 
used  his  quiet  to  give  warning  and  counsel  to  the  new 
and  excited  world. 

The  present,  he  thought,  may  be  full  of  vigour  and 
of  a  dancing  life  ;  but  when  its  noise  is  loudest,  retreat 
for  a  time ;  remember  the  past  and  its  quiet  beauty. 
Do  not  lose  its  power;  and  his  Bacchanalia^  or  the 
New  Age,  contrasts  the  dance  of  Manads,  breaking  in 
on  the  shepherd's  still  enjoyment  of  the  hush  of  Na- 
ture, with  the  wild  orgie  of  the  New  Age,  scattering 


cW.1 


98  Fovir  Victorian  Poets 

the  charm,  the  dignity,  and  the  peace  of  the  past. 
**  Rejoice  in  this,"  the  new  men  cry,  as  the  shepherd 
was  bid  to  rejoice  in  the  stormy  riot  of  the  Bacchanals. 
**  Ah,"  says  the  poet,  "the  shepherd  thought  the  hush 
and  quiet  beautiful,  and  I  feel  the  past  while  I  live  in 
the  present.  I^ovely  was  the  silence,  the  hush  of  the 
world,  when  but  a  few  were  great,  and  men  loved 
them ;  when  what  was  excellence  was  known." 

And  Progress^  another  poem  of  warning,  tells  the 
new  world  (which  has  thrown  the  old  religion  over- 
board) to  take  care  not  to  lose  with  its  loss  the  fire 
within,  not  to  perish  of  cold.  There  is  no  religion 
which  God  has  not  loved,  which  has  not  taught  weak 
wills  how  much  they  can  do,  which  has  not  let  soft 
rain  fall  on  the  dry  heart,  and  cried  to  self- weary  men, 
"Ye  must  be  born  again."  Keep  these  things.  It  is 
not  in  the  pride  of  life  that  the  New  Age  should  excel; 
it  is  not  for  its  noisy  movement  that  we  should  be 
chiefly  glad : 

But  that  you  think  clear,  feel  deep,  bear  fruit  well, 
The  Friend  of  Man  desires. 

These  things  are  written  in  a  loftier,  truer,  wiser 
music  than  his  melancholy,  troubled  harp  could  sing 
twenty  years  before.  I  trust  I  have  not  dwelt  on  them 
too  long  for  my  readers'  patience.  But  the  story  is 
valuable  because  it  is  not  only  the  history  of  a  single 
soul,  but  the  history  of  thousands  of  thoughtful  Eng- 
lish folk  in  those  days  between  1840  and  1870,  when 
the  discoveries  of  science  and  criticism,  and  the  new 


MattKe-w  A.rnold  99 

developments  of  democratic  ideas,  changed  all  the 
habits  of  men's  thinking,  shook  the  old  fabrics  to 
their  foundations,  and  did  not,  as  yet,  build  new  tem- 
ples. Science  changed  its  front,  so  did  History,  I^itera- 
ture,  and  Art.  Theology  and  Philosophy  strove  to 
preserve  their  old  formation,  but  as  the  years  went  on 
were  forced,  if  they  were  to  exist  at  all,  to  change  it 
also.  And  in  the  wildered  disorder  of  men  running  to 
and  fro,  searching  in  vain  for  some  foundation  of  the 
mind,  there  were  only  a  few  who  found  it  or  who 
believed  it  would  be  found.  The  greater  number 
doubted  like  Arnold,  were  restless  like  him,  or  like 
him  fell  back  on  stoicism,  or  fled  away  from  the  noises 
into  silence  and  solitude.  There  are  many  who  re- 
member those  days.  They  lived  in  the  thick  of  the 
battle,  and  most  of  them,  being  serious  in  that  serious 
time,  did  their  duty  as  they  could.  There  are  many 
now  who  are  too  young  to  have  partaken  of  that  strife  / 

or  endured  its  confusion  of  hustling  thoughts,  of  mul-  / 

titudinous  efibrts  to  find  truth,  but  they  ought  to  know         / 
something  of  its  history,  and  be  grateful  to  those  who       / 
fought  so  well  the  battle  of  progress,  and  who  suffered     / 
in  the  battle.    It  is  because  Arnold's  poetry  concerning  / 
his  own  soul  and  the  soul  of  man  reflects  and  embodies 
so  much  more  closely  thaT'Hme  ofthirty  years  than 
either  the  poetry  of  Tennyson  or  Browning,  that  I         X 
have  dwelt  on  it  so  long.     It  is  history,  an  interesting  u-" 
history.      ' 

Looking  back,  we  see  that  the  times  were  not  so 


loo  Foxir  Victorian  Poets 


^ 


bad  as  Arnold  thought  them  to  be,  nor  was  their  rest- 
less movement  really  evil.  The  turmoil  was  not  caused 
by  want  of  ideas,  but  by  new  ideas  surging  into  the 
sleepy  elements  of  the  time.  It  was  not  the  seething 
of  decay  and  dissolution,  it  was  the  heating  upwards 
into  force  of  new  creative  powers.  Big,  formative  con- 
ceptions were  cast  into  the  world,  and  every  element 
in  that  vast  caldron  boiled  up  and  over  in  resistance 
or  agreement.  Only  after  years,  did  the  ebullition 
settle  down,  did  another  world  of  thought  begin  to 
arise  into  a  temple  in  which  men  could  rest  and  live. 
It  is  not  yet  half  finished.  Every  year  it  is  being 
built  into  harmon5\  But  we  owe  its  beginnings,  and 
we  shall  owe  much  of  its  beauty  and  of  the  peace  of 
its  aisles,  to  the  wild  creative  turmoil  which  Arnold 
thought  so  evil,  which  tilled  him  with  trouble  and  dis- 
may. He  began  to  see  the  truth  of  this  in  1867.  It 
was  clearer  to  him  in_i§77»-wheii  .ho^^^ollected  his 
^/Ipoems.  But  by  that  time  he  had  drained  dry  his  poetic 
vein.  Weary  when  he  began  to  write,  he  was  far  more 
wearied  as  a  poet  when  he  had  gone  through  the 
storm.  His  imaginative  power  was  tired  out.  His 
intellectual  power  was  not.  On  the  contrary,  the 
sword  of  his  intellect  had  been  tempered  in  the  fight, 
ground  down  to  exceeding  sharpness,  and  if  he  used  it 
with  too  little  mercy  on  his  foes,  it  was  always  with  a 
certain  humour,  sometimes  grim,  sometimes  gentle, 
which  made  even  those  whom  he  satirised  smile,  and 
forgive  him  after  their  pain  was  over.     Men  who  loved 


MattKe-w  Arnold  loi 

his  true  poetic  note,  who  felt  a  new  and  lovely  charm 
in  such  poems  as  the  Scholar  Gipsy ^  were  sorry  when 
poetry  fled  away  from  him,  when  the  practical  reason 
sat  in  the  throne  of  imagination ;  but  consoled  them- 
selves by  thinking  that  he  had  done  all  he  could  do  in 
poetry,  that  the  gold  of  that  mine  was  exhausted,  and 
that  if  he  had  gone  on,  it  would  only  have  been  silver 
that  he  could  have  given  us.  And  Westmhister  Abbey 
and  Geist  are  only  silver.  And  then  they  felt  how 
clear-eyed  and  sensible  it  was  of  him  to  put  aside  with 
so  much  ease  and  dignity  his  commerce  with  the 
Muses.  It  is  not  every  day  that  we  touch  a  man  who, 
having  reached  some  excellence  in  one  of  the  great 
arts,  knows  when  he  can  be  excellent  no  more,  and 
lays  it  by;  and,  moreover,  takes  up  new  work,  in 
other  realms  altogether,  conscious  of  new  powers, 
pleased  to  exercise  them,  and  exercising  them  with 
a  sure  hand./  In  this  new  work  Arnold  followed  his 
own  advice  to  others.  He  kept  his  eye  fixed  on  his 
subjects.  He  realised  his  aim,  and  saw  it,  for  the 
most  part,  distinctly.  He  worked  with  a  deep  anxiety 
to  help  the  world  forward  to  clearer  views  of  life.  He 
lived  far  less  within  himself,  and  far  more  for  the  sake 
of  his  fellow  men.  He  took  his  share  in  the  daily 
drudgery  of  the  world  and  brought  to  it  "sweetness 
and  light."  He  believed  in  the  new  age  while  he 
deprecated  its  sensational  elements,  and  he  used  all 
his  powers  to  lead  it  into  a  simpler,  quieter,  and  truer 
life.     Much  might  well  be  said  of  his  prose  work ;  of 


102  Fo-ur  Victorian  Poets 


its  uniqueness,  of  its  excellence,  of  its  keen  fitness  for 
these  later  times,  even  when  he  still  retained  somewhat 
in  it  of  his  old  apartness — but  that  is  not  my  business 
in  this  essay.  I  pass  on  to  those  other  poems  of  his 
which  are  outside  of  the  struggle  I  have  described, 
which  belong  to  subjects  more  or  less  independent  of 
its  pain.  Moreover,  as  I  have  written  of  the  poems  in 
their  relation  to  the  time  in  which  he  lived,  so  now  it 
is  their  poetry  itself  which,  as  far  as' I  can,  I  shall  try 
to  estimate. 

"  The  eternal  objects  of  poetry,"  said  Arnold  in  his 
Preface  to  the  Poems  of  1853,  "are  actions,  human 
actions."  Excellent  actions !  he  goes  on  to  say,*  ''and 
excellent  actions  are  those  which  most  powerfully 
appeal  to  the  great  primary  human  affections,  feelings 
which  are  permanent  and  the  same  in  the  race,  in  all 
climes,  and  at  all  times.  Poetical  work  belongs  to  the 
domain  of  our  permanent  passions ;  let  it  interest  these, 
and  it  does  not  matter  whether  the  subject  is  ancient  or 
modem.  But,  as  in  the  ancieut  subjects  the  action  is 
greater,  the  personages  nobler,  the  situations  more 
intense,  those  critics  are  wrong  who  say  that  the  poet 
must  leave  the  '  exhausted  past '  and  draw  his  subjects 
from  matters  of  present  importance." 

No  wise  critic  would  ever  say  that  the  poet  should 
not  take  his  subjects  from  the  past,  or  that  the  subjects 

*  I  do  not  quote  the  whole  statement,  only  passages  from  it, 
but  I  refer  my  readers  to  the  book.  It  is  too  long  to  quote 
in  extenso. 


^ 


MattHe-w  Arnolcl  103 

of  the  past  are  exhausted.  But  he  would  say  that  the 
poet  who  wrote  only  of  the  past,  ignoring  the  present, 
would  find  that  after  a  time  his  poetic  enthusiasm 
would  lesson  and  finally  die  away  ;  or  that  he  would  be 
forced  to  introduce,  probably  unconsciously,  modern 
feelingorj^modem  atmosphere  into  his  record  of  the 
ancient  subjects ;  or,  at  least,  that  he  would  bring  the 
subjects  nearer  to  us  by  mediaevalising  them,  as  Morris 
did  the  Greek  tales.  Moreover,  he  would  certainly 
add  to  Greek  or  to  mediaeval  tales,  as  both  Morris  and 
Keats  did,  the  modem  feeling  for  nature  and  the 
modem  subtlety  of  passion.  Try  as  he  will,  the  poet 
<vmriniwjjyest  himself  pf  the  spirit  of  the  time  in  which 
he  lives.  However,  to  support  his  point  of  view, 
Arnold  chose  some  of  the  great  stories  of  the  past  for 
poetic  treatment.  He  took  the  fine  subject  of  Merope, 
and  made  it  into  a  drama  in  the  manner  of  the  Greek. 
He  selected  Sohrab  and  Rustum — a  tale  common  to  the 
Kastem,  Teutonic,  and  Celt  peoples.  He  folded  in  his 
net  the  story  of  Tristram  and  Iseiclt,  He  tried  to  put 
the  Norse  mythology  and  sentiment  into  the  poem  of 
Balder  Dead.  And  then  he  went  no  farther  into  the 
great  subjects  of  the  past.  The  present  seized  on  him. 
Having  carefully  laid  down  his  theory  of  the  greater 
excellence  of  the  ancient  subjects,  he  made  three- 
fourths  of  his  poetry  belong  to  the  age  in  which  he 
lived.  His  great,  his  dominant  subject,  up  to  1855 
{New  Poems  was  published  in  1867),  was  himself  face 
to  face  with  his  age. 


I04  Four  "Victorian  Poets 

His  theory  then  faded  away  before  the  pressure  on 
his  modern  soul  of  the  modem  time,  the  modem  pain. 
But  the  present,  at  least  at  first,  seized  on  him  in  the 
wrong  way.  Afterwards,  in  poems  which  we  may  call 
poems  of  transition,  his  self-isolation  was  modified. 
But  now,  the  present  did  not  urge  him  outside  of  him- 
self to  live  in  the  thoughts  and  emotions  of  the  move- 
ment which  surged  around  him.  It  drove  him  into  his 
own  soul  to  consider  and  reconsider  what  thoughts  and 
emotions  the  movement  outside  awakened  into  life 
within  himself — what  his  soul  suffered  from  it,  what 
hatreds,  what  fears,  what  clashing  !  And  he  closed 
the  windows  of  the  inner  house,  that  he  might  not 
hear  or  see  that  which  disturbed  his  peace.  Cl  will 
know  myself,  he  thought,  alone,  and  then  I  may  be 
able  to  understand  and  help  the  world.  ^  This  was  his 
early  mistake  as  a  poet.  It  was  putting  the  cart  before 
the  horse. 

I  have  said  that  had  he  lived  with  the  movements  of 
his  time,  with  some  hope  and  faith,  and  with  some  joy 
in  the  strife,  he  would  have  been  a  greater  poet.  But 
here  there  is  a  special  thing  to  say,  in  this  connection, 
with  regar4.tojthe  poems  he  wrote  on  the  great  ancient 
subjects./  Had  he  not  been  too  self-involved  to  enter 
with  living  interest  into  the  movement  of  the  world 
around  him,  he  would  have  treated  those  great  subjects 
with  a  fuller  mastery.  They  are  treatedwitha^certain 
remoteness  and  coldness  which  can  orily  ^^  f^yplajrigrl 
by  the  tyranny  which  the  storms  and  woes^f  the  time 


/ 

MattHe-w  Arnold  105 

in  which  hejjved  exercised  over  his  self-qtiefiti,pnin^ 
spirit.  He  is  less  in  the  tales  than  in  himself.  ^Heis 
not  rapt  away  by  Sohrab  and  Rustum,  Balder^  or  7m- 
fram_as  Keats  was  by  Lorenzo  or  Porphyro^  or  Morris 
by  the  tales  of  the  Earthly  Paradise.  They  truly  es- 
caped from  their  age,  and  brought  passion  to  their 
subjects.  Their  subjects  were  more  to  them  than  their 
self. 

Nevertheless,  Arnold  did  partly  escape  from  him- 
self when  he  handled  the  noble  stories  of  the  past. 
His  poetry  then,  partly  freed  from  self-inquiry  and  its 
restlessness,  rose_into  a  clearer,  sweeter  region  and 
reached  a  higher  IgyeL-DX.  art.  When  we  read  the 
Strayed  Reveller^  the  Forsaken  Merman^  Sohrab  and 
Rustum^  the  Scholar  Glpsj^he  Church  at  Brou,  in 
all  of  which  he  more  or  less  escaped  from  self-con- 
sideration, we  say,  feeling  their  excellence,  "What  a 
pity  he  was  so  worried ;  what  a  greater  pity  that  he 
worried  himself;  what  a  greatest  pity  that  he  allowed 
himself  to  be  so  tormented  by  his  age  or  by  himself. 
Yet,  after  all — for  everything  has  two  sides — we  have 
seen  how  interesting  as  history  as  well  as  poetry  he 
has  made  his  age  to  us  through  himself.  When  he 
looked  into  its  mirror  he  saw  his  own  tired  face,  and 
the  waves  of  thought  that  passed  over  it.  But  the  re- 
flection wae  also  that  of  thousands  who  then  lived  and 
suffered  and  strove  to  find  their  way,  but  who  could 
not,  like  Arnold,  formulate  their  thought,  or  crystallise 
into  words  their  feeling.     And  in  this  indirect  fashion 


io6  Fo-ur  Victorian  Poets 

he  may  be  said  to  have  joined  in  the  battle  he  hated, 
and  to  have  helped  the  world. 

Might  he  not  have  escaped  from  the  trouble  of  the 
present,  and  his  own  in  it,  by  falling  in  love  ?  Most 
men,  most  poets  certainly,  pass  in  youth  through  a 
period  in  which  love  leads  them  out  of  themselves, 
and  opens  the  gates  of  that  vast  and  shining  realm 
of  self-forgetfulness  where  art  has  built  her  noblest 
palace.  We  may  not  say  that  youthful  love-passion 
brings  a  man  into  that  excelling  realm,  or  leads 
an  artist  into  its  inner  shrine.  A  larger,  a  mightier 
expansion  of  love  is  needed  for  that  high  citizenship — 
a  love  which  passes  beyond  one  woman  or  one  man 
to  embrace  nature,  and  man,  and  God;  but  we  may 
say  that  love-passion  opens  the  gates  of  this  king- 
dom, gives  us  our  first  experience  of  loss  of  self,  and 
affords  a  fleeting  vision  of  the  glory  it  may  be  to  lose 
ourselves  in  the  whole  of  lyove. 

Arnold  had  but  little,  it  seems,  of  that  young  ex- 
perience. It  was  not  the  natural  outcome  of  his 
character  or  of  the  character  of  Clough.  This,  too, 
was  a  pity.  Had  they  had  more  of  the  usual  love- 
passion  of  youth,  they  would  much  sooner  have  learnt 
the  great  lesson  they  needed  so  much,  of  not  thinking 
of  themselves.  Only  here  and  there,  by  fits  and  starts, 
and  always  mixed  with  retreats  on  his  own  soul,  love 
seems  to  have  come  to  Arnold  in  his  poetry.  And  his 
few  love-poems,  half  of  the  woman  and  half  of  himself, 
form  a  sort  of  transition  between  poems  about  himself 


MattHe^r  Arnold  107 

and  the  others  about  subjects  beyond  himself.  These 
poems  then  I  shall  briefly  discuss. 

It  was  not  only  the  youthful  passion  of  love  which, 
if  we  judge  from  his  eariy  poetry,  was  of  small  force 
in  Arnold.  He  seems  also,  in  his  desire  for  almost 
a  stoic  temperance,  to  have  felt  less  than  other  poets 
those  eager  enthusiasms  for  natural  beauty,  for  human 
causes,  for  universal  ideas  which  stir  into  great  emo- 
tion, whether  of  joy,  aspiration,  or  pity,  poets  in  their 
youth.  The  intense  glow  of  young  life,  of  which  love- 
poems  are  only  one  result,  was  either  weak  in  him,  or 
repressed  ;  and  in  consequence,  his  poetic  life  was  sure, 
sooner  or  later,  to  suffer  from  the  exhaustion  at  which 
it  did  arrive.     He  ceased  to  write  poetry. 

But  when  that  youthful  fire  is  strong  in  a  poet,  it 
does  not  burn  out.  It  only  changes  the  objects  on 
which  it  feeds,  and  glows  with  a  steadier  heat  around 
them.  When  it  is  not  strong,  it  is  easily  put  out  by 
ill-fortuned  circumstances,  and  the  poet  is  then  left 
without  one  of  the  elements  which  most  feed,  impel, 
and  develop  the  youthful  imagination.  Such  ill 
fortune,  we  have  seen,  did  befall  Arnold.  The  pres- 
sure of  that  noisy,  sceptical  time  ministered  to  the 
chilling  of  what  youthful  fire  he  possessed.  His  train- 
ing also  chilled  it.  Rigorous  teachers  imposed  on  him 
and  Clough  moral  and  intellectual  responsibilities,  too 
early  for  their  strength,  too  heavy  for  them  to  bear, 
and  froze  the  genial  current  of  their  youth.  His 
father's  mind,  his  father's  view  of  life,  lay  heavy  on 


io8  Ko"ur  Victorian  Poets 

him,  and  all  the  more  heavy  because  he  reverenced 
him  so  much.  Duties  were  not  sufficiently  mingled 
with  natural  pleasures.  He  carried  to  Oxford  a  some- 
what austere  solemnity ;  and  the  love-poem,  with  its 
exalted  note  of  ardour,  may  have  seemed  to  him  un- 
worthy of  a  serious  man.  But  he  was  not  yet  a  man, 
and  it  is  a  misfortune  to  a  youth,  much  more  to  a 
blossoming  poet,  to  anticipate  the  gravity  of  manhood. 
Nevertheless,  if  Arnold  had  had  more  of  youthful  fire, 
he  might  have  saved  his  life  from  these  despondencies. 
And  it  is  that  want  which  makes  his  poem  of  Tris- 
tram and  Iseult  so  inadequate.  The  story  of  Tristram 
isa  story  of  passion  between  thejexes.  The  passion 
of  the  story  is  faded  out  in  Arnold's  poem.  Thin, 
thin  as  the  speech  of  the  wailing  ghosts  Ulysses  saw  in 
Hades  are  the  voices  in  that  poem.  ^JPerhaps  Arnold 
felt  that  the  wounds  of  Tristram,  the  long  lapse  of 
time  since  the  lovers  had  met,  excused,  even  insisted 
on  the  presence  of  a  weakness  in  the  expression  of 
passion]^  But  had  he  known  more  of  true  passion 
in  love,  and  felt  the  story  and  the  atmosphere  of  its 
time  more  truly,  he  would  not  have  made  this  artistic 
mistake,  which  he  probably  thought  was  an  artistic 
excellence.  The  note  which  is  sounded  in  the  poem 
might  suit  the  temper  and  situation  of  Iseult  of 
Brittany.  It  does  not  suit  those  of  Tristram  and  Iseult 
of  Ireland.     The  poem  is  cold. 

There  are  other  poems  which  maj'-  be  called,  each 
with  its  own  difference,  love-poems,  of  which  the  most 


MattKe-w  A.rnold  109 

remarkable  are  Faded  Leaves^  Euphrosyne,  Calais 
Sands,  and  the  series  addressed  to  Marguerite.  The 
poems  entitled  Faded  Leaves,  in  which  all  the  love 
is  unhappy,  "too  late  or  separated,  or  despairing 
or  longing,"  should  not,  I  think,  have  been  kept 
among  the  collected  poems.  The  subject  is  plainly 
worked  up  and  chosen  from  the  outside.  Their  work- 
manship is  weak ;  unfortunate  phrases  jar  the  lyric 
sense ;  there  is  none  of  the  naturalness  of  love  in  the 
series,  save  in  one  verse  of  the  last  poem.  His  artistic 
sense  is  scarcely  bom  in  these  poems,  and  his  longing 
for  quiet  intrudes  its  philosophy  curiously  and  un- 
happily into  them.  They  must  have  been  a  very 
youthful  effort,  yet,  if  they  were  so,  what  a  curious 
youth  !  As  to  Euphrosyney  it  is  better  done.  Browning 
would  have  liked  its  motive.  This  is  sufficiently  given 
in  the  last  verse : — 

It  was  not  love  which  heaved  thy  breast. 
Fair  child  ! — it  was  the  bliss  within. 

Adieu  !  and  say  that  one  at  least 
Was  just  to  what  he  did  not  win. 

Calais  Sajids  comes  nearer  to  reality,  but  its  close 
remains  obscure.  Whether  the  lover  is  to  live  always 
apart  in  a  silent  worship,  as  in  one  verse — or  to  be 
happy  in  meeting  his  sweetheart,  as  in  the  last  verse — 
we  cannot  know.  One  motive  or  the  other  should 
have  been  chosen  and  completed. 

No  one  can  tell  whether  the  series   addressed  to 
Marguerite,    and  entitled  Switzerland,  records  a  real 


no  Four  Victorian  Poets 

passage  of  love  in  his  life  when  he  loved  for  a  time 
a  daughter  of  France  who  lived  in  Switzerland,  or 
whether  he  invented  the  subject  in  order  to  write  on 
the  matter  of  a  love-passion  which  was  bom,  lived 
for  a  time  and  died,  in  a  heart  too  restless,  too  un- 
tamed, too  feverish  with  the  trouble  of  the  world,  too 
unable  to  forget  itself,  for  unforgetful  happiness  in 
another.  I  do  not  like  to  think  that  the  subject  was 
invented,  but  there  are  passages— it  may  be  they  were 
added  afterwards— which  are  chill  with  that  intellect- 
ual or  moral  analysis  both  of  which  are  apart  from 
love  in  its  passionate  mood.  On  the  other  hand,  if 
anywhere  in  Arnold's  poetry  there  is  youthful  passion, 
it  is  here. 

They  begin  with  a  poem  of  the  first  volume,  1849, 
A  Memory  Picture,  and  record  his  first  meeting  and 
parting  with  Marguerite.  It  ought  to  have  been  col- 
lected with  the  others.  The  poems  of  1852  record  the 
progress  of  this  love  affair.  Three  years  had  not 
dimmed  his  occasional  passion  for  this  girl ;  and  they 
close  with  a  poem  written  ten  years  afterwards,  in 
which  he  remembers  her,  and  wonders  where  she  is, 
as  he  muses  on  the  terrace  at  Berne. 

The  second  in  the  series  as  finally  brought  together, 

entitled  Parting,  is  the  most  interesting.    L<ike  Goethe, 

when  he  fled  from  his  slavery  to  lyili — and  Arnold 

imitates  here  the  motive  of  Goethe's  poem — he  calls  on 

,  the  mountains  to  receive  him  and  release  him  from  the 

'  storm  of  love ;  but  the  vision  of  Marguerite,  passing  to 


MattHei?*r  Arnold  iii 

and  fro  in  the  house,  will  not  let  him  go.  At  last,  he 
seems  to  break  away,  but  the  next  poem  brings  them 
together  again,  only  to  part.  His  love  and  her  love 
faded  for  diflferent  reasons,  and  they  slid  away  from 
one  another.  It  is  no  wonder  she  ceased  to  care,  for 
he  mingled  too  much  of  his  unquiet  soul  with  his  love ; 
and  women,  in  tlie,matter  of  love,  have  no  patience, 
and  for  good  reason,  with  a  lover  whose  psychology  is 
engaged  with  his  own~soul,  and  not  with  theirs.  It  is 
no  wonder,  on  the  other  hand,  that  he  ceased  to  care, 
for  her  nature  was  unfitted  to  his,  and,  moreover,  as 
we  are  unartistically  informed,  she  had  a  past.  In- 
deed, it  is  a  melancholy  business.  There  is  none  of 
the  natural  self-forgetfulness  of  passion  in  the  poem. 

As  to  the  closing  poem,  which  has  its  own  grace  and 
chatm,  it  is  spoilt  by  the  verse  which  wonders  whether 
she  has  not  perhaps,  in  these  ten  years,  followed  her 
light  and  flowery  nature,  and  returned  to  Paris  to  live 
an  immoral  life.  That  verse  should  be  expunged ; 
and  I  do  not  think  that  the  poet  could  ever  have  really 
loved  the  girl,  else  memory  of  tenderness  and  of  pas- 
sion past  would  have  spared  her  that  conjecture.  The 
greater  artist  would  have  left  it  out,  even  had  he 
thought  it.  But  Arnold,  though  an  artist,  was  not 
a  great  artist. 

I  have  said  he  was  more  of  a  careful  artist  in  the 
poems  which  he  wrote  on  subjects  apart  from  his  own 
time  and  his  own  self.  He  took  great  pains  with 
them,  sometimes  almost  so  much  self-conscious  pains 


112  Foxjir  Victorian  Poets 

that  he  lost,  if  he  ever  possessed  the  capability  of  it, 
the  natural  rush  of  a  poet  in  creation.  There  is  an 
occasional  artificiality  in  poems  like  Sohrah  and 
Rusium  and  Balder  Dead^  which  bears  the  same  rela- 
tion to  art  that  Rochefoucauld  said  hypocrisy  bore  to 
virtue.  And  it  is  especially  displayed  in  their  direct 
ii^iitation  of  the  similes  of  the  Homeric  poems  and  of 
their  way  of  introducing  similes.  He  seems  like 
Homeric  writers,  to  fetch  them  from  other  poems,  and 

^  fit  them  in  unfitly.  He  introduces  far  too  many  of 
them,  and — sometimes  excellent,  sometimes  too  far 
apart  from  the  thing  they  are  supposed  to  illustrate, 
sometimes  hopelessly  wrong  in  the  place  they  occupy, 
sometimes  contradictory  in  detail, — they  weaken  the 
passion  of  the  poem  and  delay  its  movement.  In  this, 
Arnold  does  not  show  the  moderation  he  was  so  fond 
of  preaching.  Then,  again,  the  just  simile  should 
.  only  be  introduced  when  the  action  or  the  emotion  is 
heightened,  when  the  moment  is  worthy,  and  when  as 
it  were  in  a  pause,  men  draw  in  their  breath  to  think 
what  may  happen  next,  for  the  moment  has  reached 
intensity.  The  simile  fills  that  pause  and  allows  men 
time  to  breathe.  But  Arnold  introduces  his  similes 
often  lightly,  about  unimportant  matters,  where  the 

/^  action  should  not  pause  but  be  rapid,  when  the  moment 
is  not  weighty.     This  is  an  artistic  frivolity. 

Moreover,  the  Homeric  tradition  is  out  of  place  in 
Sohrab  and  Rustum.  Arnold  takes  g^eat  pains  with 
its  local  colour.     We  have  all  the  geography  of  the 


MattKei^r  Arnold  113 

district,  and  he  has  U3ed  the  names  well.  He  describes 
the  Tartar  and  Persian^dresses,  armour,  tents,  the  dif- 
ferent  aspects  of  the  warring  tribes,  their  manners  and 
much  more  in  preat  detail.  But  in  this  fullv  Oriental  \CA 
poem  the  similes  and  the  whole  manner  Qf  the  verse 
are  Greek.  It  is  a  mixture  too  odd  for  gooH  art 
Either  have  no  local  colour  or  keep  it  pure. 

The  story  of  Sohrabayid Rustum,  of  the  father  who 
unknowingly  fights  with  and  slays  his  son,  and  dis- 
covers  the  misery  too  late,  is  a  wide-spread  t^e.  It 
exists  m  two  torms  at  least,  in  one  of  which  the  dis- 
covery is  made  in  time,  in  Teutonic  saga.  We  find  it 
in  Celtic  saga.     It  was  attached  to  the  CuchuUainn  / 

tale,  and  the  rash  hero,  like  Rustum,  slays  his  son.      \ 
The  subject  is  simple^   full   of  a  terrible  pitv.  and  a   *„..^^ 
natural  horror,  capable  of  passionate  trpattn^nf    anH 
of  leaving  in  our  minds,  when  wrought  according  to 
nature,  a  sympathy  with  the  fates  of  men  which  softens 
and  heals  the  heart.    Arnold  has  not  missed  its  oppor- 
tunities.     The  brave,  Invply^  anH  tpnHpr-hearted  voiith  i*^""^ 
is  well  contrasted  with  the  worn,  haughty,  austere 
warrior ;  and  the  pathos  swells  from  point  to  point, 
deepened  by  memorial  allusion  and^^i^rription,-ti11  it 
culminates  in  the  discovery  that  the  fg«^>i^r  "hag  ^lain 
the    son.       That  msisis_sitiip1y    nnrl    rirni^nntHy 
wrought  by  Arnold,  and  both  the  Q\\^x^c^^f-r^^   made 

beautiful  hyjmrp  a^d  ffiHnranpf^  f\i^  fnfft  tng-Qt1iQr|  ctir 


that  high  pleasure  in  us  which  is  compact  of  honour 
for  human  nature  and  of  pity  for  its  sorrow  —  man 


114  Fovir  Victorian  Poets 


weeping  for,  but  enduring  with  a  constant  mind,  the 
worse  the  gods  can  inflict ;  till  we  feel  that  man  is 
^ofalenhan  the  gods — till  we  know  that  the  gods 
whom  man  has  previously  created  must  be  replaced 
bjr^arnew  creation^  The  poem  closes  inT^nonely 
beauty.  The^son^and  the  father  lie  alone  on  the  plain 
as  night  falls,  between  the  mourning  hosts,  none  dar- 
in^jojntmde.  Thejdark  heaven^lonjejsjgbieirjteat, 
and  their  sorrow  their  shroud.     And  we  hear  the  deep 


river  flowing  by,  the  image  of  the  destiny  of  man  that 
bears  us  on,  helpless,  on  its  breast,  until,  with  it.  we 
find  the  sea. 

Balder  Dead  is  by  no  means  so  fine  a  poem.  It  is 
almost  absurdly  Homerised.  It  is  far  too  long,  and 
made  too  long  by  irrelevant  matter  and  descriptions, 
and  by  repetitions.  It  is  curiously  inartistic.  In  it, 
however,  Arnold  had  found  out  that  he  was  too  lavish 
of  his  similes.  Moreover,  his  temper  of  mind  was 
quite  apart  from  that  of  the  North.  He  must  have 
been  incapable  of  apprehending  it,  or  he  would  never 
have  written  this  poem  in  this  fashion.  He  tries  for 
the  masculine  simplicity  of  the  North,  but  he  does  not 
gain  it ;  there  are  even  times  when  his  elaborate  sim- 
plicity verges  towards  the  ridiculous,  as  in  the  descrip- 
tion of  the  daily  battle  and  feast  in  Valhalla.  Odin 
— and  it  would  be  to  his  blank  amazement — is  turned 
into  the  Zeus  of  Homer,  and  Frea  speaks  like  Hera 
grown  very  old ;  and  excessively  curious  this  talk  sounds 
to  any  one  who  cares  for  the  northern  sagas  or  the 


I 


MattHe-w  Arnold  115 

early  northern  poems.  It  is  not  a  true  Norse  poem, 
yet  it  drags  in  so  much  of  the  northern  mythology 
that  the  mind  of  the  reader  is  dissipated  away  from  the 
main  subject.  Some  of  the  descriptions,  however,  like 
that  of  Hodur  visiting  Frea  when  night  had  fallen  on 
the  streets  of  Asgard,  have  a  pictorial  excellence. 
What  Arnold  has  well  seized — in  spite  of  the  excess  of 
description — is  the  human  emotion  in  the  story,  the 
bitter  grief  of  Hodur  for  his  unconscious  slaying  of 
Balder,  the  grief  of  Balder' s  wife,  and  Balder's  love  for 
her,  the  eagerness  of  the  gods  to  get  Balder  back,  the 
union  of  Balder  and  Nanna  in  Hela's  realm,  their 
happiness  together  in  that  shadowy  place  where  even 
passion  is  thin  ;  the  farewell  of  Hodur  to  Balder  when 
they  part  to  meet  no  more  till  the  Twilight  of  the 
gods.  The  last  ride  of  Hermon  to  Hela's  reign,  his 
meeting  with  Hodur,  the  prophecy  of  Balder,  his 
weariness  of  blood  and  war  which  half  reconciles  him 
to  the  world  of  the  dead,  the  picture  of  the  new  world 
of  peace  for  which  he  waits — this  is  the  finest  part  of 
the  poem,  but,  on  the  whole,  the  subject  was  outside 
of  Arnold  nor  has  he  at  all  grasped  its  significance. 
Nevertheless,  being  thus  outside  of  him,  we  are  saved 
in  it  from  the  trouble  of  his  soul. 

Tristram  and  Iseult  I  have  partly  characterised.  It 
does  not  cling  and  knit  itself  into  its  subject  as  ivy 
round  and  into  the  oak.  It  swims  about  it  like  a  fish, 
hither  and  thither.  Anything  —  the  tapestry,  the 
storm,  the  firelight,  the  bed  curtains,  the  dress  of  the 


ii6  Four  Victorian  Poets 


I 


(^ueen^-leadsjt^wayjrom  the  centmLpa^sieH,  It  is  a 
pretty  poem,  with  charming  descriptions,  but  senti- 
mental, which  Tristram  and  Iseult  never  were.  The 
most  important  part  of  it  is  where  his  ancient  love 
comes  to  visit  him.  There,  if  anywhere,  Arnold  should 
be  vitally  clear,  and  in  the  subject.  He  is  miles  and 
miles  away  from  the  time,  the  temper,  the  characters, 
and  the  passion  of  the  matter  in  hand.  Theconven^ 
tions  of  modern  society  and  moralityrule  the  imUriiiig, 
speeches  of  the^  lovers.  Its  ending  is  curious.  Iseult 
of  Brittany  is  left  with  her  two  children,  and  goes  out 
to  walk  with  them,  just  like  a  modern  widow  in  a 
sentimental  novel,  along  the  cliflfs,  and  tells  stories  to 
[n^  the  boys.  Among  the  rest  she  tells  the  story  of  Merlin 
and  Vivien,  and  with  this,  which  has  nothing  in  the 
world  to  do  with  the  subject,  the  poem  closes.  This 
dragging  in  of  a  new  tale  is  the  most  inartistic  thing 
that  Arnold  ever  did,  nor  is  the  tale  well  told.  Indeed, 
it  is  scarcely  told  at  all.  (  Three-fourths  of  this  closing 
part  are  natural  description,  but  natural  description  of 
great  charm  and  clear  vision,  quite  modern  in  feeling, 
and  strangely  apart  from  the  atmosphere  which  sur- 
rounds the  story  of  Tristram.)  It  reads  as  if  Arnold, 
unable  to  invent  fresh  matter,  fell  back  on  his  remem- 
brance of  a  visit  to  Brittany,  and  inserted  a  description 
of  the  landscape,  in  order  to  fill  up  his  space.  Tristram 
and  Iseult  must  be  a  youthful  piece  of  work,  and  I  am 
the  more  driven  to  that  opinion  by  its  distant  imitation 
of  Coleridge  and  Byron,  notes  of  both  of  whom  sound 


MattKew  Arnold  117 

clearly  in  its  verse  and  manner.  These  are  the  three 
long  poems. 

We  turn  from  these  long  poems,  for  which  his  genius 
was  unfitted,  for  he  had  not  the  capacity  of  either  copi- 
ous or  continuous  invention,  to  the  lyric  and  elegiac 
poems  in  which  his  genius  is  at  its  best,  and  in  which 
— unlike  those  already  discussed — the  subjects  have 
carried  him  away  firom  himself.  A  few  of  them  belong 
to  the  Greek  cycle  of  tales,  a  region  where  he  loved  to 
dwell. 

He  tried  to  write  a  tragedy  in  the  manner  of  the 
Greek  drama  on  the  subject  of  Merope.  It  really  is  a 
failure.  Its  worst  fault  is  djulness,  and  though  he 
strove  hard  to  make  a  great  moral  impression  emerge 
through  the  action  of  the  drama,  and  leave  its  power 
on  the  audience — an  end  his  friend  Sophocles  desired 
— he  did  not  succeed  in  this  because  the  action  of  his 
play  had  not  enough  of  life  in  it.  *  *  Good  wine  needs 
no  bush,"  we  say  when  we  read  his  long,  interesting, 
explanatory  preface ;  but  here  is  an  enormous  sign 
hung  out  over  the  tavern  door  to  lead  us  to  try  the 
wine.  The  landlord  must  have  himself  doubted  its 
quality. 

The  songs,  or  rather  the  recitations,  of  Callicles, 
published  in  1855  under  the  title  of  the  Harp- Player 
on  ^bia,  are  pleasant,  but  only  one  of  them — Cadmus 
and  Harmonia — is  of  the  finest  quality.  Philomela^ 
which  recalls  the  old  sad  tale  of  the  palace  in  the 
Thracian  vale,  is  half  English,  half  Greek,  and  full  of 


ii8  Fo-ur  Victorian  Poets 

a  passion  rare  in  Arnold,  half  for  himself,  half  for  the 
sorrow  of  the  world.  But  far  the  best  of  these  Hellenic 
i  things  is  the  Strayed  Reveller.  This  is  a  piece  of  pure 
\^  /  ^reationwith  full  invention  flowing  throughinn^appy 
ease.  The  scene  is  vividly  pictured.  The  palace,  the 
court,  the  fountain,  the  forest,  and  the  hills  around  the 
palace,  are  clothed  in  the  Greek  beauty  and  clearness. 
We  breathe  that  pellucid  air,  and  see  the  Reveller 
in  the  dewy  twilight,  and  Circe  in  the  palace  porch, 
and  Ulysses,  **the  spare,  dark-featured,  quick-eyed 
stranger ' '  coming  from  the  pillared  hall.  This  picto- 
rial power  charms  us  through  the  poem.  The  Reveller, 
half  drugged  into  vision  by  Circe's  wine,  describes, 
with  a  conciseness  and  illumination  which  save  it  from 
the  merely  picturesque,  a  bright  procession  of  countries, 
men,  and  the  works  of  men — a  ''wild,  thronging  train 
of  eddying  forms  "  sweeping  through  his  soul.  But  it 
is  not  mere  description.  Good  matter  of  thought  Ues 
at  the  centre  of  the  poem.  The  youth  tells  what  the. 
happy  gods  see : — Tiresias  the  prophet,  the  Centaurs 
on  Pelion,  the  Indian  drifting  on  the  mountain  lake 
among  his  melon  beds,  the  Scythian  on  the  wide 
steppe,  the  merchants  ferrying  over  the  lone  Choras- 
mian  stream,  the  heroes  sailing  in  Argo ; — and  the 
gods  rejoice,  pleased  as  men  in  a  theatre  with  the 
stream  of  human  life  passing  them  by,  where,  uncon- 
cerned, they  sit  at  ease. 

The    poet  sees  the  same  things,   but  not  in  the 
same  way.     He  has  to  bear    what  he  sees,  to  feel 


MattKew  Arnold  119 

with  the  pain  and  the  fates  of   men,  to  share  the 
agony : — 

These  things,  Ulysses 

The  wise  bards  also  (y 

Behold  and  sing. 

But  oh,  what  labour  ! 

O  prince,  what  pain  ! 

Thegods  exact  this  pricejfor  thp  pn'ft  of  song,  that  the 
jKjetg^heonmp  what  tTiey  sing. 

The  poet,  it  is  often  said,  by  depth  of  sympathy, 
suffers  more  than  other  men,  a  part  of  their  pains 
as  well  as  his  own.  And  this  is  a  self-flattering  theory 
that  poets  hug  to  their  breast.  I  have  little  sympathy 
with  the  conceit.  If  the  poet,  being  more  sensitive 
than  other  men,  feel  the  pain  and  ugliness  of  the  world 
sorely,  he  also  is  just  as  sensitive  to  its  joy  and  beauty  ; 
and  he  has  greater  rapture  than  other  men.  All  things 
are  set  over  one  against  another,  and  the  poet  has  no 
business  to  enlarge  on  his  pain  and  to  ignore  his  joy. 
He  is,  in  reality,  very  well  paid  for  his  trouble.  More- 
over, he  has  a  great  advantage  over  other  men.  There 
are  thousands  just  as  sensitive  as  he,  who  are  obliged 
to  suffer  in  silence ;  but  the  poet,  having  the  gift  of 
expression,  can  shape  his  pain  into  words,  cry  loudly 
his  lyric  cry,  make  the  world  the  sympathetic  witness 
of  his  woes  ;  and  then,  having  expressed  his  trouble, 
forget  it,  or  get  rid  of  it  and  go  on,  if  that  please  him, 
to  shiver  with  another  pain,  shape  it  in  its  turn,  and 
forget  it — and  this  he  can  do  all  his  life  long.     It  is  a 


I20  Four  Victorian  Poets 

pleasing  amusement,  and  one  need  not  have  much 
sympathy  with  his  sorrows.  Those  whom  I  do  sym- 
pathise with  are  those  who  have  no  voice,  who  ap- 
peal to  no  public,  who  Uve  in  lonely  trouble  with  the 
troubled  world.  Yet  they,  too,  have  their  outlet.  What 
the  poet  sings  truly  expresses  them  to  themselves. 
There  is  always  a  way  to  the  common-sense  of  joy  if 
only  we  look  for  it.  These  silent  souls  can  read  and  be 
relieved :  but  that  makes  it  all  the  more  incumbent  on 
the  poet  to  take  care  that  his  muse  should  also  proph- 
esy joy  and  be  the  refreshment  of  care  as  well  as  the 
revealer  of  sorrow. 

Arnold,  though  he  cried  out  a  great  deal,  did  not 
hold  this  sentimental  view  of  the  poet.  There  is  a  fine 
passage  in  Resignation  which  enshrines  another  view. 
It  is  too  long  to  quote,  but  it  illustrates  his  poetic  aim — 
and  it  belongs  to  his  earliest  poems. 

The  poet,  to  whose  mighty  heart 
Heaven  doth  a  quicker  pulse  impart, 
Subdues  that  energy  to  scan 
Not  his  own  course,  but  that  of  man. 
Though  he  move  mountains,  though  his  day 
Be  pass'd  on  the  proud  heights  of  sway, 
Though  he  hath  loosed  a  thousand  chains, 
Though  he  hath  borne  immortal  pains, 
Action  and  suflfering  though  he  know — 
He  hath  not  lived,  if  he  lives  so. 

He  sees  the  great  ruler  wisely  sway  the  people,  and 
the  just  conquests  of  beauty,  and  the  populous  town  ; 
the  whole  movement  of  life ;  rejoices  in  it,  but  does 
not  say  :  /  am  alone. 


MattKe^w  Arnold  121 

He  sees  the  gentle  stir  of  birth 
When  morning  purifies  the  earth  ; 
He  leans  upon  a  gate  and  sees 
The  pastures  and  the  quiet  trees. 


He  gazes — tears 
Are  in  his  eyes,  and  in  his  ears 
The  murmur  of  a  thousand  years. 
Before  him  he  sees  life  unroll, 
A  placid  and  continuous  whole — 
That  general  life,  which  does  not  cease 
Whose  secret  is  not  joy,  but  peace  ; 
That  life,  whose  dumb  wish  is  not  miss'd 
If  birth  proceeds,  if  things  subsist ; 
The  life  of  plants  and  stones  and  rain 
The  life  he  craves — if  not  in  vain 
Fate  gave,  what  chance  shall  not  control, 
His  sad  lucidity  of  soul. 

But  that  does  not  contain  all  the  thought  on  the 
matter.  He  tells  in  a  sonnet  of  that  young  Italian 
bride,  lovely,  gaily  garmented,  who,  perishing  in  an 
accident,  was  fotmd  to  wear  a  robe  of  sackcloth  next 
her  **  smooth  white  skin.** 

Such,  poets,  is  your  bride,  the  Muse  !  young,  gay. 
Radiant,  adorn'd  outside  ;  a  hidden  ground 
Of  thought  and  of  austerity  within. 

Again,  we  are  told  in  the  Epilogue  to  Lessing's  La- 
ocoon,  the  poet  is  to  tell  of  lyife's  movement ;  all  of  it 
from  source  to  close.  It  is  Life's  movement  which 
fascinates  the  poets.  But  it  is  too  much  for  them  to 
bear  or  to  tell.  Only  a  gleam  of  it  here  and  there  can 
they  see,  only  now  and  then  can  they  hear  a  murmur 
of  it  J  not  the  whole  light,  not  the  full  music.     A  few, 


122  Fovir  "Victorian  Poets 

a  very  few,  have  seen  and  heard — Homer,  Shake- 
speare— and  these  are  the  greatest  of  mankind. 

Again,  Arnold  says  —  the  poet  is  a  priest  of  the 
wonder  and  bloom  of  the  world.  We  see  with  his 
eyes  and  are  glad.  But  he  does  not  see  all.  TAs 
human  life  is  wider  than  he,  so  Nature  is  greater, 
vaster  than  the  singer.  Her  mighty  march  moves 
and  will  move  on,  when  all  our  poetry  of  her  is  dead  ; 
nor  can  it  ever  express  the  thousandth  part  of  her 
over-brimming  life.  Yet  if  the  poet  love,  he  has 
charm  ;  and  to  charm  the  heart  of  man,  to  loose  our 
heart  in  tears  and  joy,  to  give  us  the  freshness  of  the 
early  world,  to  heal  the  soul,  to  make  us  see  and  feel 
and  know, — this  is  the  poet's  dignity  and  use.  J 

But  he  takes  another  view.  The  poet  is,  by  his 
nature,  alone  (and  here  the  personality  of  Arnold 
intrudes),  and  soHtude  oppresses  him.  He  flies  from 
the  noise  of  men  which  jars  him.  But  can  Life  reach 
him  in  the  solitude,  and  he  is  to  express  Life ;  and 
fenced  from  the  multitude,  who  will  fence  him  from 
himself?  He  hears  nothing  then  but  the  mountain 
torrents  and  the  beating  of  his  own  heart.  Wherefore, 
tormented  in  exile,  he  flies  back  into  the  world  of  men. 
And  there  he  is  again  unhappy.  Absence  from  him- 
self (for  in  the  turmoil  of  men  he  cannot  hear  the 
voice  of  his  soul)  tortures  him.  Again  he  refuges 
in  silence,  and  again  the  air  is  too  keen  to  breathe,  the 
loneliness  unendurable.  Thus,  miserably  bandied  to 
and  fro,  only  death  can  heal  the  long  disease  of  his  life. 


MattKe-w  Arnold  123 

It  is  in  that  way  that  Arnold,  in  Empedocles^  paints  the 
Thinker  and  the  Poet,  nor  is  it  only  in  Empedocles .  It 
was  a  picture  that  he  afterwards  changed  for  a  brighter 
one  ;  but  it  represented  truly  dtu-ing  periods  of 
depression,  his  view  of  his  own,  and  of  a  poet's,  life. 

Of  all  these  poems,  written  apart  from  himself,  one 
of  the  most  delicately  felt  is  the  third  part  of  the 
Church  of  Brou^  where  the_young  prince  and  his 
duchess  lie  together,  carved  on  their  tomb ;  and  in 
the  silent  night  when  the  soft  rain  is  onjhe^roof.  or 
in  the  sunset  when  the  rose  and  sapphire  glories  of  the 
great  western  window  fall  on  pillar  and  pavement, 
wake  to  cry— This  is  the  bliss  of  Heaven,  this  is 
eternity.  That  is  a  fair  poem,  but  the  most  charming,"^ 
the  most  romantic,  most  in  Jthe  world  of  the  pure^nd 
tender  imagination  is  The  Forsaken_^^l£rman .  To 
read  it  is  to  regret  that  he  could  not  oftener  escape 
into  that  ideal  region  where,  at  least  for  a  time,  our 
sorrows  seem  dreams,  and  the  soul  is  healed  of  its 
disease.  Moreover,  this  poem  is  sweeter  in  melody 
than  most  of  his  poems,  as  if  his  ear  had  been  purged 
in  that  loftier  and  brighter  air.  There  is  nothing 
stranger  in  a  man  who  dwelt  so  much  on  excellence 
in  the  poetic  art,  and  who  criticised  failure  in  form  so 
sharply,  than  Arnold's  inability  to  recognise  the  harsh- 
ness, the  broken  sounds,  the  want  of  harmony  in  his 
own  verse.  How  he  could  have  left  unchanged 
verses  so  frequently  out  of  tune  I  cannot  understand. 
His    ear    was    not    sensitive,    but    in    the    ForsaJ^sn 


124  Yoxir  Victorian  Poets 

Merman  itjwas  in  tune.  It  may  be  that  it  derived 
this  excellence  from  the  good  composition  of  the  piece. 
When  the  composition  is  good,  the  melody  of  the 
verse  is  also  good.  One  excellence  induces  the  other. 
And  this  may  be  said  of  the  Scholar  Gipsy  and  of 
Thy r sis.  They  are  both  well  composed,  and  the 
melody  of  the  verse  in  them  is  always_good_aiiisome- 
I  tixaes-e-x^site. 

The  mention  of  these  two  pieces  brings  me  to  the 
elegiac  poems.  I  have  said  that  Arnold,  having  sor- 
rows at  the  root  of  his  life,  wrote  with  pecuHar  ex- 
cellence the  elegy.  To  excel  in  the  elegy  is  not  easy. 
Of  course,  it  is  easier  to  write  than  an  ode  of  triumph 
or  a  song  of  rapture  like  the  Epithalamium  of  Spenser; 
but  there  are  many  pitfalls  into  which  a  poet  may  fall 
iti  building  an  elegy,  and  into  these  Arnold^,  being 
austere  in  thought  and  hating  excess  as  much  as  he 
loved  temperance,  and  always  mingling  thought  with 
feeling,  did  not  easily  fall.  There  is  a  severe  beauty, 
an  intellectual  force^  in  these  elegiac  poems  which 
strengthens,  as  it  intensifies,  their  emotion,  and  is,  as 
it  were,  the  skeleton  round  which  imagination  com- 
pacts their  living  body. 

The  first  of  these  is  Memorial  Verses — written  on 
j  Wordsworth  in  1850 — and  they  contrast  in  soothing, 
healing  power  with  Byron's  force  and  Goethe's  calm. 
Few  things  have  been  better  said,  or  with  more  delight- 
ful finish,  than  these  on  the  influence  of  Wordsworth, 
and  the  roots  of  his  power.     Not  quite  so  well  said, 


MattHe^w  Arnold  125 

but  said  with  more  personal  feeling  and  with  Arnold's 
long  affection  for  the  I^ake  country  made  lor  the  mo- 
ment more  tender  by  the  death  of  Wordsworth,  are 
the  verses  in  the  beginning  of  the  poem,  The  Youth  of  * 
Nature^  where  those  strange  lines  occur  which  say  that 
the  age  can  rear  no  more  poets,  so  blind  Arnold  was  to  ^^ 
the  real  significance  of  the  time  in  which  he  lived.        ^ 

Then  there  are  the  verses  on  his  father — Rugby  I 
Chapel,  1857.  They  are  written  like  the  others  with-  V/ 
out  rhyme,  in  the  form  which  Arnold  often  used,  and 
which  can  only  be  perfectly  used  by  an  artist  who, 
unlike  Arnold,  is  a  master  of  melody.  Else  he  falls 
into  prose,  or,  being  unlimited  by  the  austere  rule  of 
rhyme  which  ought  to  force  concentration,  he  lets  his 
thought  run  more  loosely  than  it  should.  Into  both 
these  errors  Arnold  is  sometimes  betrayed  in  these 
rhymeless  verses.  Yet  the  deep,  controlled,  filial  feel- 
ing with  which  he  wrote  this  poem,  and  the  steadfast 
matter  of  thought  concerning  human  life  which  was 
born  of  the  depth  of  his  feeling,  give  to  it  so  great  a 
sincerity  and  so  serious  a  spirituality,  that  no  one  can 
read  it  without  being  thrilled  into  sympathy  by  its 
moral  power,  and  by  its  prophetic  passion  bettered  in 
soul.  It  is  an  influence  for  life ;  and  the  close  is  noble 
— that  close  in  which  he  paints  the  worn  and  weary 
hosts  of  mankind  dispirited,  scattered,  and  lost  in  the 
waste,  but  uplifted,  cheered,  and  knit  together  by  the 
great  souls  he  always  thought  so  few,  but  who  are 
many  more  than  he  imagined  :— 


126  Four  Victorian  Poets 

Then  in  such  hour  of  need 

Of  your  fainting,  dispirited  race, 

Ye,  like  angels,  appear, 

Radiant  with  ardour  divine  ! 

Beacons  of  hope,  ye  appear  ! 

Langour  is  not  in  your  heart. 

Weakness  is  not  in  your  word, 

Weariness  not  on  your  brow. 

Ye  alight  in  our  van !  at  your  voice. 

Panic,  despair,  flee  away, 

Ye  move  through  the  ranks,  recall 

The  stragglers,  refresh  the  outworn. 

Praise,  re-inspire  the  brave! 

Order,  courage  return. 

Byes  rekindling,  and  prayers, 

Follow  your  steps  as  ye  go. 

Ye  fill  up  the  gaps  in  our  files, 

Strengthen  the  wavering  line, 

'Stablish,  continue  our  march, 

On,  to  the  bound  of  the  waste. 

On,  to  the  City  of  God. 

The  poem  on  the  Brontes,  Haworth  Churchyard^  is 
scarcely  up  to  the  level  of  its  subject,  but  that  on 
Heine  is  of  a  different  and  a  finer  quality.  It  does 
not  seize  the  whole  of  Heine,  but  it  touches  his  youth 
and  happiness  with  grace,  and  his  manhood,  in  its 
mockery  and  agony,  with  so  sympathetic  a  pity  that 
the  very  censure  seems  part  of  the  pity.  The  misery 
of  Heine's  life  made  most  impression  on  Arnold,  and 
he  seems  to  trace  it  to  an  inborn  root  of  bitterness. 
He  quotes,  with  approval,  Goethe's  phrase  concerning 
some  poet,  and  applies  it  to  Heine,  *'  that  he  had  every 
other  gift,  but  wanted  love,"  love  which  is  "the 
fountain  of  charm — charm,  the  glory  that  makes  the 


MattHe^iT  Arnold  127 

song  of  the  poet  divine. ' '  And  in  a  strange  close  to 
his  poem — in  a  thought  of  which  Arnold  seems  to 
think  far  more  highly  than  he  ought  to  think,  for  it  is 
intolerably  fantastic — he  makes  Heine  to  be  the  in- 
carnation of  a  momentary  bitter  mood  of  the  Spirit 
of  the  world. 

The  Spirit  of  the  world, 

Beholding  the  absurdity  of  men — 

Their  vaunts,  their  feats — ^let  a  sardonic  smile 

For  one  short  moment,  wander  o'er  his  lips. 

That  smile  was  Heine  / — for  its  earthly  hour 

The  strange  guest  sparkled  ;  now  'tis  pass'd  away. 

This  is  not  as  true  as  he  thinks.     Heine  w^  much 

more  than  that.     Far  more  than  half  of  his  bitterness 

was  bom  of  lovingness  the  fulness  of  which  he  could 

not  exercise,  of  natural  and  excusable  feeling  against 

his  terrible  fate.     He  cried  aloud  at  it ;  the  poet  must 

speak ;  but,  in  reality,  no  man  could  have  borne  that 

fate  more  resolutely,  nor  did  he  lose  love  in  it.     Nor 

could  Arnold,  when  he  wrote  these  lines,  have  known 

the  poems  where  Heine's  better  soul  went  forth  to  feel 

with  man  and  to  fight  man's  battle,  to  stand  as  a  lonely 

sentinel  when  he  could  fight  no  more,  and  to  die  alone, 

in  the  night  at  his  outpost,  for  the  cause  of  the  whole 

army.     I  cannot  quote  the  whole  of  the  poem,  the 

Enfant  perdu,   but  here  are  the   first  and  the   last 

verses— 

Verlor'ner  Posten  in  dem  Freiheitskriege, 
Hielt  ich  seit  dreissig  Jahren  treulich  aus. 
Ich  kampte  ohne  Hoffnung,  dass  ich  siege, 
Ich  wusste,  nie  komm'ich  gesund  nach  Haus. 


i 

J 


128  Fo\ar  Victorian  Poets 

Ein  Posten  ist  vacant ! — Die  Wunden  klaflfen — 
Der  Bine  fallt,  die  Audern  riicken  nach — 
Doch  fairich  unbesiegt,  und  meine  Waffen 
Sind  nicht  gebrochen — Nur  main  Herze  brach. 

And  now  I  touch  on  the  two  best  poems  he  wrote — 
the  Scholar  Gipsy  and  Thyrsis^  Both  are  engaged 
with  Clough,  and  they  are  suffused  throughout  with 
the  tenderness  of  that  deep  friendship  between  man 
and  man,  which,  begun  in  youth,  keeps  in  it  the  purple 
light  of  youth;  which,  continued  in  manhood,  wins  the 
strength  of  the  love  which  perseveres  through  sad 
experienge,  and  the  beauty  which  is  bom  of,  and  nour- 
ished by  associated  memories.  These  fill  the  poems 
with  sweet  emotion,  enfold  them  in  an  jorj^f. tenderness. 
Then,  though  in  this  tenderness  of  friendship  he  has 
escaped  from  self-consideration,  y^\.  they  are  filled 
with  thought  concerning  the  time  they  had  both  lived 
through,  the  needs  of  their  age  and  its  remedies.  In 
this  region,  on  which  I  must  dwell  further,  the  poems 
ought  to  be  read  together.  They  illustrate  and  supple- 
ment one  another ;  and  whatever  is  said,  both  in  retro- 
spect and  prospect,  however  different  may  be  the 
momentary  turn  of  thought,  all  is  brought  into  unity 
by  the  pervasiveness  of  the  one  emotion  of  memorial 
and  loving  friendvship. 

Then,  too,  another  emotion  fills  the  verse-Hthat  love 
of  Oxford  as  tHe  home  of  his  youthful  heart,  as  the 
nurse  of  intellect,  the  mother  of  fine  causes,  the  teacher 
and  cherisher  of  the  wisdom  and  beauty  of  the  ancients, 


MattHe-w  Arnold  129 

the  lover  of  the  masters  of  humane  learning  and  art. 
That  flows  through  these  poems,  and  is  supported  by 
so  rich  a  local  colour  that  not  even  Tennyson  has  ever 
laid  more  fully  a  whole  countryside  before  us.  From 
every  field  and  hilltop  crowned  with  trees  we  see  Ox- 
ford in  the  verse,  her  ancient  colleges,  her  "dreaming 
spires, ' '  lovely  in  her  peace,  romantic  in  her  memories, 
classic  in  her  thought.  Over  every  hill  we  wander  in 
the  verse,  in  the  well-known  woods,  through  the  quiet 
villages,  in  the  deep  meadows  where  the  flowers  love 
their  life,  by  the  flowing  of  the  Thames  ;  in  poetry  so 
happy  and  so  loving  that  each  name  strikes  itself  into 
a  landscape  before  our  eyes.  And  to  add  to  the  charm, 
Arnold  has  filled  the  landscape  with  humanity  and  its 
work,  with  shepherd  and  reaper,  gipsies^nd  scholars, 
hunters  and  oarsmenTdancing  maidens  and  wandering 
youthSTaSoong  wEom,  alive  and  gay,  Thyrsis^and  the 
Scholar  Gipsy,  and  a  meditative  Arnold,  alive  and 
serious,  move  and  speak  of  the  true  aims,  the  just 
ideas,  thegraye  conduct,  of  himian  life.  The  picture 
is  delightful,  and  the  urging  power  of  it  is  love — the 
life-long  love  of  an  Oxford  scholar  for  the  shelter  and 
inspiration  of  his  youth.  In  no  poems  that  Arnold 
wrote  is  his  natural  description  better  than  it  is  in 
these. 

His  natural  description  to  which  I  now  turn,  is  al- 
ways vivid,  pictorial,  accurate,  done,  to  use  his  own 
phrase,  with  his  eye  on  the  subject.    The  adjectives 
which  he  chooses  so  Carefully  are  so  apt  and  striking 
9 


130  Fo-ur  Victorian  Poets 

that  they  have  the  force  of  facts.  What  can  better 
words  like  these — 

So  have  I  heard  the  cuckoo's  parting  cry, 

From  the  wet  field,  through  the  vext  garden  trees, 

Come  with  the  volleying  rain  and  tossing  breeze : 

or  these  from  Dover  Beach — 

The  sea  is  calm  to-night. 

The  tide  is  full,  the  moon  lies  fair 

Upon  the  straits  ;  on  the  French  coast  the  light 

Gleams  and  is  gone  ;  the  cliflFs  of  England  stand, 

Glimmering  and  vast,  out  in  the  tranquil  bay. 

Come  to  the  window,  sweet  is  the  night  air  ! 

Only,  from  the  long  line  of  spray 

When  the  sea  meets  the  moon-blanch'd  land, 

Listen  !  you  hear  the  grating  roar 

Of  pebbles  which  the  waves  draw  back,  and  fling 

At  their  return,  up  the  high  strand. 

Begin  and  cease,  and  then  again  begin, 

With  tremulous  cadence  slow,  and  bring 

The  eternal  note  of  sadness  in. 

This,  as  accurate  as  it  is  poetical,  is  finer  but  not 
truer — with  ' '  its  melancholy,  long,  withdrawing  roar ' ' 
— than  Tennyson's  verse,  describing  the  same  thing — 

The  scream  of  a  maddened  beach  dragged  down  by  the  wave. 

At  least,  it  enables  Arnold  to  make  a  more  human  use 
of  the  natural  fact  than  Tennyson  could  have  done. 
Tennyson's  phrase  makes  the  sea  and  the  stones  of  the 
beach  be  and  feel  like  men,  and,  having  done  so,  he 
cannot  use  them  as  illustrating  the  large  movement  of 
human  life.  But  Arnold  seeing  and  hearing  them  as 
pure  nature,  not  humanised  nature,  transfers  the  scene 


Matthew  Arnold  131 

into  an  image  of  the  spiritual  life  of  man  ;  and  with  an 
imagination  and  force  which,  by  their  passion,  reach 
splendour  of  thought  and  diction.  This  is  a  frequent 
way  of  his  with  nature,  and  no  one  has  done  it  better 
in  English  poetry.     I  quote  it : 

The  Sea  of  Faith 

Was  once,  too,  at  the  full,  and  round  Earth's  shore 

Lay  like  the  folds  of  a  bright  girdle  furl'd 

Eut  now  I  only  hear 

Its  melancholy,  long,  withdrawing  roar, 

Retreating,  to  the  breath 

Of  the  night-wind,  down  the  vast  edges  drear 

And  naked  shingles  of  the  world. 

Always  it  is  the  same  in  his  poetry  of  nature.     He 
describes  the  thing  he  sees,  flower  or  bird,  stream  or 
hill,  exactly  as  thev  are,  without  humanising  them,  '^{toJ 
without  veiling  them  with  any  sentiment  of  their  own, 
without  having  concerning  nature  any  philosophy  that 
spiritualises  nature  as  the  form  of  thought  or  love, 
any  belief  that  she  is  alive  or  dwelt  in  by  living  beings. 
Nature  to  Arnold  is  frequently  the  nature  that  modem \ 
science  has  revealed  to  us— matter  in  motion,  taMng   / 
an  inconceivable  variety  of  form,  but  always,  in  its  [ 
variety,   acting    rigidly  according    to    certain  ways,   > 
which,  for  want  of  a  wiser  term,  we  call  laws.     For  \ 
the  first  time  this  view  of  nature  enters  into  English  j 
poetry  with  Arnold.     He  sees  the  loveliness  of  he.r^ 
doings,  but  he  also  sees  their  terror  and  dreadful ness 
and  their  relentlessness.     But  what  in  his  poetry  he 


c*-^ 


132  Fo\jr  Victorian  Poets 

chiefly  sees  is  the  peace  of  nature's  obedience  to 
law,  and  the  everlasting  youth  of  her  unchanging 
life. 

He  contrasts  her  calm  with  our  turmoil,  her  quiet .. 
changes  of  action  day  after  day,  her  rest  after  action,     \ 
with  our  hurryTour  contusion,  and  our  noise.     Calm    ^ 
soul  of  things,  he  cries,  make  me^cakg,  let  the  human 
world,  like  thee,  perfect  its  vast  issues  "in  toil  un- 1 
severed  from  tranquillity.''     Again,  he  contrastTlhe  \ 
immortal  life  of  nature  with  our  decay  and  death. 
\That  life  existed  before  us,  will  exist  after  us,  fulfilling 
pauselessly  its  pure  eternal  course.     Oh,  he  cries,  to 
be  alone  with  that  intense  life,  and  in  its  youthfulness, 
to  be  clear,  composed,  refreshed,  ennobled;  to  have  its    ; 
steadfast  joy  !     ^"^^^j  J^£^_/^>  that  was  the  ideal  he 
drew  from  nature.*  jl 

Then,  he  also  contrasts  her  joy  and  freedom  with 
the  sorrow  and  the  slavery  of  our  struggle  towards 
any  perfection.     She  obeys  law  silently  and  therefore 

*  Once  he  drew  from  this  a  strange  corollary.  Such  vast 
life,  ever  evolving  new  things  and  old  things  in  new  shapes, 
may  bring  us  (who  are  in  that  life)  back  hereafter  into  another 
conscious  life — may  even  bring  together  again  in  better  cir- 
cumstance those  who  have  been  together  here  in  sadness  and 
pain.  At  least,  so  I  read  the  meaning  of  a  curious  epilogue  to 
Haworth  Churchyard : 

Unquiet  souls  ! 

— In  the  dark  fermentation  of  earth, 

In  the  never  idle  workshop  of  nature, 

In  the  eternal  movement, 

Ye  shall  find  yourselves  again  ! 


Matthew  Arnold  133 

is  ftge.  We  do  not  obey,  or  we  resent  the  law,  and 
suflfering  from  its  rigid  restrictions,  are  enslaved  by  it. 
This  is  the  motive  of  a  great  number  of  passages  in 
Arnold's  poems.  In  this  view  of  nature,  he  has  slipped 
out  of  his  view  of  her  as  seen  by  science.  Science 
could  not  talk  of  the  joy  or  freedom  of  nature.  And 
indeed,  he  was  not  faithful  to  the  scientific  view  of  her. 
His  conception  of  her  wavered  with  his  mood.  He 
sometimes,  in  a  sort  of  reversion  to  Wordsworth, 
speaks  of  her  as  powerful  to  help  him,  as  having, 
like  a  mother,  the  heart  to  help  him.  He  appeals  to 
her  to  fill  him  with  the  healing  qualities  he  vainly 
imputes  to  her.  He  is  happily  inconsequent  in  his 
conceptions  of  her. 

For  example,  there  is  a  half-outlined  conception  of 
nature,  quite  different  from  the  rest,  which  obscurely 
appears  in  a  poem  entitled  Morality.  He  seems  to 
imagine  that  behind  nature  there  is  a  self-harmonious, 
self-conscious  Life,  as  it  were  a  Demiourgos,  who,  put- 
ting the  thoughts  of  the  Eternal  Intelligence  into  form, 
has  made  the  Universe  and  the  intelligent  beings  who 
inhabit  it,  and  therefore,  being  in  nature  and  in  man 
as  thought,  can  bring  them  into  communion  and  cause 
nature  to  work  and  feel  with  man ;  and  the  lines 
which  close  A  Summer  Nighty  seem  to  be  filled  with 
that  idea — 

Ye  heavens,  whose  pure  dark  regions  have  no  sign 
Of  languor,  though  so  calm,  and  though  so  great, 
Are  yet  untroubled  and  unpassionate ; 


/-^ 


134  Four  Victorian  Poets 

Who,  though  so  noble,  share  in  the  world's  toil, 

And,  though  so  task'd,  keep  free  from  dust  and  soil ! 

I  will  not  say  that  your  mild  deeps  retain 

A  tinge,  it  may  be,  of  their  silent  pain 

Who  have  long'd  deeply  once,  and  long'd  in  vain. 

This  thought  which  I  suggest  he  conceived,  is  in 
these  lines  obscure  and  wandering.     It  takes  a  clearer, 
indeed  another,  consistency  in  Morality.    Katurejthere, 
her  freedom  and  joy,  looks  on  our  agony,  and,  while 
we  thinkshe  censures  or  despisesoarstrife,_does  really_ 
nothing  of  the  kind,  but,  on  the  contrary,  is  emo- 
tionalised by^  itj^setjnto_self^^ 
ijbyjt._  Did  I  ever  feel,  she  asks,  the  eagerness  to  per- 
fection, to  rcaiisation~oF/thought  in  form,  which  gives^ 
to  men  that  earnest  air  ? 

See,  on  her  face  a  glow  is  spread, 
A  strong  emotion  on  her  cheek ! 

"  Ah,  child !  "  she  cries,  **  that  strife  divine, 

Whence  was  it,  for  it  is  not  mine  ? 

"There  is  no  effort  on  my  brow — 
I  do  not  strive,  I  do  not  weep  ; 
I  rush  with  the  swift  spheres  and  glow 
In  joy,  and  when  I  will,  I  sleep. 
Yet  that  severe,  that  earnest  air, 
I  saw,  I  felt  it  once — but  where  ? 

**  I  knew  not  yet  the  gauge  of  time, 

Nor  wore  the  manacles  of  space  ; 
I  felt  it  in  some  other  clime, 
I  saw  it  in  some  other  place. 
'T  was  when  the  heavenly  house  I  trod. 
And  lay  upon  the  breast  of  God." 


I 


Matthew  Arnold  13  5 

This  self-conscious  communion  of  nature  with  her 
own  heart,  this  questioning  of  her  own  being  in  con- 
trast with  man's  being,  this  dim  remembrance  of 
herself  elsewhere,  hold  in  them  a  philosophic  idea  of 
nature  we  do  not  find  elsewhere  in  the  poets,  and  the 
philosophic  imagination  is  charmed  to  play  with  it. 
It  seems  as  if  Arnold  thought  of  the  creative  Logos, 
by  whose  being  outward  nature  is  and  continues,  as 
able  to  pass  back  momentarily  from  his  existence  in 
the  natural  world,  which  is  subject  to  the  conceptions 
of  time  and  space,  to  a  remembrance  of  the  eternity 
when  there  was  neither  time  nor  space  to  him,  when 
there  was  no  material  universe  into  which  he  had 
shaped  the  thoughts  of  God,  when  he  was  himself  the 
Logos  in  God  as  yet  unexpressed  in  form,  but  desiring 
eagerly  towards  form.  This  is  Arnold  playing  with 
the  obscure  conceptions  of  Neoplatonism.  _^ 

Again,  he  puts  into  two  poems,  the  Youth  of  Nature  j 
and  the  Youth  of  Man^  his  contrast  of  the  everlasting  ^ 
life  of  Nature  with  the  decay  and  fleeting  of  pur  life. 
The  beauty,  charm,  romance  wefeel  in  nature,  are 
they,  he  asks,  in  nature  or  in  the  poet  ?  In  nature,  he 
answers,  and  far  more  than  in  the  poet ;  the  singer  is 
less  than  his  theme.  They  were  in  the  poet  when  he 
was  conscious  of  the  immeasurable  glory  of  Nature's 
life.  And  what  they  were  in  him  no  pencil  could  ever 
paint,  no  verse  could  ever  fully  tell.  The  de^,  the 
force,  the  joy,  sadness,  and  longing  of  them  which  in 
youth  he  felt  were  nature's  depth,  force,  joy,  sadness, 


136  Fo\jr  Victorian  Poets 


and  longing  ;  and  only  a  shred  of  them  could  he  ever 
put  into  all  his  verse.  £^es,  cries  Nature,  when  all  the 
poets  who,  because  they  were  part  of  me,  thought 
that  my  life  was  theirs,  are  dead  dust,  I  remain  as 
living,  as  young  as  ever.  J  This  is  the  law.  Nature, 
rich  and  full  in  us  when  we  are  young,  we  think  to 
have  no  life  but  that  which  we  give  her.  C^ut  as 
years  pass  by,  our  energy  fails,  and,  like  fools,  we 
think  our  decay  is  a  decay  in  nature.  But  she  watches 
us,  silent  and  contemptuous.  Her  living  beauty  never 
sees  our  corruption.  J  Therefore,  cries  Arnold,  while 
we  are  able,  get  into  vital  union  with  the  calm,  and 
obedience  and  life  of  nature,  order  the  soul  into  the 
spirit  of  her  life — 

Sink,  O  youth,  in  thy  soul ! 
Yearn  to  the  greatness  of  nature  ; 
Rally  the  good  in  the  depths  of  thyself! 

•«  III        I ~-|i  III  I MiiilliiiM ■  i""™l <l'Mll 

That  is  his  conclusion.  It  would  not  be  mine  from 
e  premises,  and  it  belongs  to  that  part  of  Arnold's 
thinking  .which  he  derived  from  stoicism.  It  were 
better  to  rise  out  of  one's  soul  into  love  of  the  soul  of 
the  world,  to  lose  oneself  in  its  beauty  and  joy  ^d 
peace  by  self-forgetfulness,  to  see  the  perfect  good  out- 
side  of  one's  self,  and^jspring  off  one's  own  shadow 
y  into  union  with  the  infinite  light.  No  man  can  change 
his  yearning  to  the  greatness  of  nature  into  possession 
of  that  greatness  who  is  sunk  in  his  personal  soul. 
But  outside  of  that  prison,  ravished  by  the  love  of  the 
perfect — he  retains  in  decay,  in  old  age,  in  death,  not 


^ 


1/    thi 


MattHew  Arnold  137 

the  misery  Arnold  paints  in  the  poem,  but  delight  and 
life,  even  rapture. 

I  say  no  more  of  his  poetry  of  nature.  I  pass  to 
his  poetry  of  man,  and  here  I  must  risk  repetition,  and 
take  up,  in  this  new  connection,  poems  on  which  I 
have  already  written.  He  cared  for  the  beauty  of  the 
natural  world,  but  he  cared  far  more  for  the  landscape 
of  the  soul  of  man.  It  was  at  first  the  landscape  of 
his  own  life — its  rivers,  its  buried  life, 

The  hills  where  his  life  rose 
And  the  sea  where  it  goes, 

the  voices  which  called  it  in  the  night,  of  which  he 
first  wrote  with  his  serious  stoic  passion.  But  the 
time  came  when  the  landscape  of  the  soul  of  the  world, 
of  humanity  at  large,  engaged  him  far  more  than  that 
of  the  little  world  within  him.  He  sang  of  man's 
history  in  the  past,  but  chiefly  of  his  own  age  and 
country,  and  of  the  battle  for  life  and  God  in  which 
he  moved  ;  yet,  even  now,  he  still  remained  more  of  an 
interested  spectator  than  of  a  fighter.  It  was  only 
when  he  gave  up  verse  that  he  became  a  warrior  hotly 
engaged  in  the  fray.  But  whether  spectator  or  not,  itj 
is  when  he  is  writing  not  about  himself  but  about  the 
soul  of  man  travailing  through  its  foes  to  the  City  of 
God  that  he  is  at  his  best  as  a  poet.  The  larger  sub- 
ject makes  the  lovelier  verse,  when  one  is  a  poet  at 
all.  Even  in  the  earliest  poems,  as  in  Resignation  and 
in  the  passion  of  Philomela^  he  began,  as  also  in  some 


138  Fovir  Victorian  Poets 

of  the  sonnets  of  that  time,  to  look  out  beyond  himself 
over  the  world  of  man.  The  close  of  Dover  Beach 
marks  how  despairing  and  pitiful  was  sometimes  that 
outlook.     The  world,  he  says, 

Hath  really  neither  joVj  norJovej  nor  light, 
Nar  rprMtndg^Por  peace«  noaiJieliiJDr-Daiji ; 
And  we  are  here  as  on  a  darkling  plain 
Swept  with  confused  alarms  of  struggle  and  flight, 
Where  ignorant  armies  clash  at  night. 

Then,  in  another  mood,  hope  for  the  world  emerges 
at  the  close  of  that  noble  and  frowning  poem,  A  Sum- 
mer Night.  And  then,  changing  again,  he  can  stand 
apart,  and  give  advice  to  the  confused  and  toiling 
world.  The  New  Age  bids  men  keep  reverence  for 
the  past,  and  Progress  bids  them  keep  religion.  Guard 
the  fire  within,  lest  the  heart  of  humanity  perish  of 
cold.  I  7%/f  Future^  a  poem  as  full  of  imagination  as 
of  thought,  paints  first  all  that  man  has  lost  of  the  in- 
sight, the  freshness,  the  calm,  the  vigour  of  life  which 
filled  the  past ;  and  then,  the  hoarse  roar  of  the  present, 
the  huge  cities,  the  black  confusion  of  trade,  the  peace- 
lessness.  What  was  before  man  neglects,  of  what 
shall  succeed  he  has  no  knowledge.  But  haply,  the 
river  of  Time,  as  it  grows,  may  gain,  not  the  earlier 
calm,  but  a  solemn  quiet  of  its  own ;  and  as  it  draws 
to  the  Ocean,  may,  at  last,  allure  peace  to  the  soul 
of  man  out  of  the  infinite  sea  into  which  it  flows. 

This  is  a  higher,  a  more  hopeful  strain ;  and  it  is 
continued  and  strengthened  in  the  Elegiac  Poems.     I 


Matthew  Arnold  i39 

have  said  something  of  them  already,  but  more  must 
now  be  said.  I  dwell  now  on  their  deep  interest  in  the 
life  and  history  of  humanity.  Their  poetry,  with  a 
few  lyric  exceptions,  is  the  best  he  wrote.  They  are  /pi 
weighty  with  interesting,  novel,  masculine,  and  often 
surprising  thought.  They  extend  their  sympathy 
over  wide  areas  of  history  and  are  in  close  contact  also 
with  the  limited  time  in  which  he  lived.  They  con- 
tain admirable  drawings  of  men  and  women  whom  he 
admired  and  loved  ;  of  their  characters  and  their  influ- 
ence on  the  world.  Weighted  with  grave  and  clear 
thought,  their  imagination  moves  with  power,  and  with 
a  grace  which  results  from  the  power.  It  grasps  the 
higher  nature  of  one  division  of  the  human  race,  as  in 
these  celebrated  lines  which  describe  the  Orient  when 
Rome  had  ceased  to  disturb  it ;  yet  the  phrase  is  only 
partly  true : 

She  let  the  legions  thunder  past, 
And  plunged  in  thought  again. 

With  as  much  forceful  insight,  when  he  pictures  the 
Scholar  Gipsy  flying  from  the  fevered  world  and  pur- 
suing still  the  unreachable  ideal,  he  describes  another 
whole  class  of  men.  And  with  the  insight  and  the 
force  of  it,  what  beauty  of  words,  what  intimate  love 
of  the  lovely  world  ! 

Still  nursing  the  unconquerable  hope, 

Still  clutching  the  inviolable  shade, 
With  a  free,  onward  impulse  brushing  through, 

By  night,  the  silver'd  branches  of  the  glade — 


140  Toxxr  Victorian  Poets 

Far  on  the  forest-skirts,  where  none  pursue, 
Or  some  mild  pastoral  slope 

Emerge,  and  resting  on  the  moonlit  pales 
Freshen  thy  flowers  as  in  former  years 
With  dew,  or  listen  with  enchanted  ears, 

From  the  dark  dingles,  to  the  nightingales. 

I  rejoice  to  feel  in  these  elegies,  the  delicate,  sensitive 
art,  the  careful  strength  which,  combined  with  a  win- 
ning grace  and  serious  love  of  quiet  beauty,  affect  the 
soul  as  a  still,  fair  autumn  Italian  day  in  lands  full  of 
human  history  affects  the  senses.  Quietude,  power, 
beauty,  and  tenderness  pervade  them. 

The  appreciations  of  Byron,  Goethe,  and  Wordsworth, 

which  in  a  poem  on  Obermann  he  carries  further,  are 

not  only  good  in  themselves,  but  they  are  applied  to 

the  story  of  man,  and  to  the  criticism  of  the  time  in 

which  he  lived.     And  the  tenderness  and  gratitude 

with  which  he  remembers  the  work  of  Wordsworth 

pass  into  gratitude  to  him  for  the  healing  which  his 

\      verse  has  brought  to  the  heart  of  man.     A  greater 

tenderness,  a  deeper  reverence,  a  personal  love  and 

honour  fill,  as  with  sweet  waters,  the  verses  to  his 

father's  memory.     But  they  also  pass  from  personal 

r    feeling  into  feeling  for  the  fates  of  man.     What  is  the 

\    course  of  the  life,  he  asks,  of  mortal  men  on  the  earth  ? 

^   Most  men  eddy  about,  blindly  strive,  achieve  nothing, 

and  perish.    But  some  aThirst  unquenchaBle  fires,  and 

they  move  to  a  clear  goal ;  andofthese  he  writes  in  a 

noble  and  imaginative  passage,  with  a  splendour  of 

description.     Only  one  out  of  many  pilgrims  reaches 


MattHe-w  Arnold  141 

the  desolate  inn  and  the  gaunt  landlord  on  the  ridge  of 
the  snow-clad  pass.  The  rest  have  perished.  '  But  his 
father  would  not  be  saved  alone,  but  gave  his  life  to 
bring  those  that  were  lost  safe  to  the  goal.  And  from 
this  he  passes  to  describe  in  lofty  phrase  those  others, 
servants  and  sons  of  God,  through  whom  it  is  that 
mankind  still  has  faith  and  strength  enough  to  march  / 
on  to  the  City  of  God.  This  is  indeed  a  change  from 
the  days  when  he  only  thought  of  his  own  soul. 

Then  the  famous  passage  in  the  poem  on  Heine's 
Grave  on  the  Titan  toil  of  England  shows  how  he  felt         [ 

T^f^ynnrl  Tiim<;p1fJJTg  hnilding  paing  of  a  nation.      This         ,' 

dignified  passage  is  lightened  and  enlightened  by  his 
delicate  description  of  Heine's  youth  and  his  sympathy 
with  his  joy  ;  and  finally  all  the  poem  is  made  to  thrill 
with  its  final  thought  concerning  all  humanity  (thrown 
back  from  the  end  into  all  that  precedes  it) — that  the 
Spirit  in  whom  man  exists,^'^^  tnaHf>  f^rjwvfiig  the 
revealer  of  one  or  more  of  His  thoughts,  discloses 
through  us  the  infinite  variety  of  His  Being.  It  is  a 
leading  thought  of  Fichte's,  a  thought  that  arises  in 
many,  and  that  arose,  I  have  no  doubt  uncommuni- 
cated,  in  the  soul  of  Arnold.  ^-.      / 

The  Stanzas  from  the  Grande  Chartreuse^_x^!QXsS£DX^  'v 
as  I  have  already  said,  a  partial  reaction  from  the  wider, 
brighter  view  he  now  takes  of'tKFworld  fottrg-trop.ble 
of  his  ownlite  and  spirit ;  but  as  they  develop,  they 
also  pass  from  self-consideration  into  consideration  of 
the  fate  of  the  world  of  men,  and  of  those  who  shared 


142  Fo\jir  Victorian  Poets 

in  and  were  broken  by  the  strife.     Ah,  he  thinks  at 
the  close,  with  that  constantly  recurring  thought  of  his 
in  which  so  much  of  his  inner  life  and  of  ours  is  hidden, 
let  the  new  world  thunder  on  its  noisy  triumph  and 
use  its  powers,  be  proud  of  its  turbulent  life  or  of  its 
eternal  trifling — yet  there  are  a  few  who  would  in 
quiet  take  their  bent  towards  unwearied  pursuit  of  the 
1    perfect,  who  like  Glanvil  have  ''  one  aim,  one  business, 
j    one  desire,"  who  wait  in  joyous  unconcern  for  the 
/    celestial  light ;   and  they,  in  these  unthinking  days, 
j     are  the  refuge  and  light  of  the  world. 
'         Then  the  two  poems  to  Senancour,  the  writer  of 
Obermann,   mingle  their  personal  and  self-revealing 
verse  with  so  wide  a  human  interest  that  in  all  who 
read  them  a  hundred  questions  rise — of  their  own  soul, 
of  the  age  in  which  they  live,  and  of  the  fates  of  man. 
On  the  great  difierence  of  the  second  from  the  first  I 
have  already  written,  but  I  may  dwell  here  on  their 
charm— charm  of  grave  thought,  ranging  far  and  wide, 
charm  of  happy  word  and  phrase,  and  charm  of  natural 
description.     The  very  atmosphere  of  that  lovely  land, 
where  so  many  hearts  have  been  healed,  the  flower- 
haunted  meadows,  the  shimmering  lake  below,  the 
blue  hills,  the  far-ofi"  snows — is  in  the  loving  verse, 
and  it  is  mingled  with  the  soul  of  Arnold  and  Ober- 
mann,  till  each  mountain  slope  and  every  flower  upon 
them,  and  the  waves  of  the  lake  as  they  break  on  the 
shore,  are  of  men,  and  through  men,  and  in  men. 
Of  all  these  elegies,  the  Scholar  Gipsy  and  Thyrsis 


Matthew  Arnold  i43 

are  the  most  delightful,  delightful  even  though  their 
subject  be  sad.  I  have  dwelt  on  the  tenderness  of 
their  sadness.  I  have  not  dwelt  on  their  contemplative 
beauty.  They  are  pervaded  by  that  retired  contem- 
j4ation_ofJife  a  man  may  have  who,  flying  from  the 
storm  of  cities  for  a  brief  holiday,  thinks  the  brief  time 
into  an  eternity,  and  in  the  eternal  hermitage  of  his 
soul  muses  on  earth  and  human  life. 

These  poems  reach  excellence,  that  rare  thing  Arnold 
himself  loves  so  much,  to  whose  lonely  summit,  the 
artist,  climbing  through  rocks  and  mist,  so  seldom  can 
attain.  They  are  pure  poetry,  moving  in  a  dance, 
serious  and  bright,  graceful  and  grave  in  turn,  to  the 
Dorian  pipe,  "the  Dorian  strain."  The  soft  recorders 
accompany  the  pastoral,  the  idyllic  song,  wise  with 
thought,  happy  with  noble  phrase,  filled  with  accurate 
and  loving  description  of  nature  ;  and  in  it  lives  from 
line  to  line  the  contemplation  of  humanity. 

Virgil  and  Theocritus  have  been  infused  into  their 
manner  and  their  verse,  nor  has  Lycidas  been  quite 
forgotten.  Yet  they  are  not  imitative  ;  the  atmosphere, 
the  thought,  the  music,  and  the  subject  are  Arnold's 
own.  Although  this  classic  echo  is  heard  in  them, 
they  are  modem,  of  the  tempestuous  age  when  they 
were  written  by  one  who,  while  he  wrote  them,  looked 
on  the  tempest,  but  for  their  meditative  hour  was  not 
tossed  upon  its  waves.  Some  of  the  classic  episodes 
seem  a  little  out  of  place,  especially  that  of  the  Tyrian 
trader  and  the  Grecian  coaster  at  the  end  of  the  Scholar 


144  Yoxxr  Victorian  Poets 

Gipsj/y  but  we  are  glad  to  forgive  this  for  the  sake  of 
their  charm.  Indeed,  whenever  Arnold' s  poetry  touches 
Greece,  we  meet  an  especial  music  and  grace;  but  no- 
where is  this  clear,  lovely,  and  sweet  air  so  lucid  and 
so  pure  as  in  the  classic  scenery  and  life  which  glide  in 
and  out  of  these  two  elegies.  Oxford,  while  we  read, 
seems  not  far  away  from  the  flowers  of  Bnna  or  the 
silent  stream  of  Mantua,  nor  is  the  wandering  student 
then  surprised  to  hear  Theocritus  piping  near  the  Iffley 
mill,  or  see,  as  he  passes  by,  Virgil  dreaming  under  the 
shade  of  the  Fyfield  tree. 

But  Glanvil's  scholar,  the  gipsy-hearted  wanderer, 
a  shy  shade  that  comes  and  goes,  who  loves  the  lovely, 
quiet  world,  pursuing  ever  the  ineffable,  is  brought, 
in  a  beautiful  variety,  into  contrast  with  Arnold's  own 
life,  and  with  the  feverish  life  of  his  time.  ^  Beyond  the 
elegiac  cry  is  the  greater  cry  of  humanity.  Thyrsis^ 
too,  closes  with  the  same  personal,  ever-recurring 
strain.  Thyrsis  loved  the  country,  so  did  I.  He  felt 
the  storm  of  his  world  and  went  to  meet  it.  It  was  too 
much  for  him  and  he  died. 

Too  quick  despairer,  wherefore  wilt  thou  go? 

But  I  was  forced  into  the  world.  The  way  is  long 
and  the  Alps  of  truth  unclimbable.  I  too  am  going ; 
but  I  wander  on,  like  the  shy  Scholar,  like  Thyrsis,  on 
the  quest.     The  light  we  sought  is  shining  still.  ~) 


DANTB  GABRIEL  ROSSETTI 

IN  the  course  of  the  history  of  all  the  arts,  and  per- 
haps most  plainly  in  the  history  of  poetry,  similar 
conditions  recur,  not  in  particulars,  but  in  general 
outline.  The  different  circumstances  of  each  age 
naturally  modify  the  conditions  away  from  accurate 
similarity,  but  in  the  main  development  of  the  art,  a 
time  comes  when  it  follows  lines  resembling  those  it 
has  previously  followed,  and  this  analogous  condition 
has  been  produced  by  similar  causes.  I  have  already 
in  other  places  noticed  such  a  similarity  between  the 
creation  of  a  literary  poetry — to  use  an  inadequate 
term — by  Keats,  and  that  of  a  similar  kind  of  poetry 
by  Rossetti  and  Morris.  Both  poetries  have  little  to 
do  with  the  age  in  which  they  were  written.  They 
reject,  on  the  whole,  the  present  and  abide  in  the  past. 
Their  subjects  are  not  the  subjects  of  their  day,  nor  are 
they  influenced  to  any  great  extent  by  the  thoughts  or 
emotions  of  the  world  around  them.  Their  main  desire 
is  to  live  outside  of  that  world,  to  assimilate  a  different 
realm  of  thought  and  feeling,  to  find  beauty  as  she  was 
in  the  past  not  as  she  seems  to  be  in  the  present,  to  live 
in  the  imagined  not  in  the  actual  world ;  and  yet  to 
keep  the  imagined  world  true  to  the  main  lines  of 
lo  145 


146  Fo\ir  Victorian  Poets 

nature  and  human  nature.     ''L^t  us  escape,"  the^. 
cry,  ''  into  a  lovelier  earth,  a  purer  air^ajimpler  and 


more  natural  life.' 


We  can  trace,  in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  cent- 
ury, the  beginnings  of  such  a  cry  in  Arnold*  s  passing 
endeavour  to  find  his  subjects  in  Greek,  Norse,  and 

mediaeval  story,  in  his  reiterated  longing  for  beauty  and - 

calm,  apart  from  the  noise  of  warring^^LOUght_andJow- 
desires.     We  have  looked  back  to  the  time  when  in  the 


fifties  and  sixties  of  the  last  century  the  old  faiths  and 
theories  of  life  were  thrown  into  the  hissing  furnace 
of  scientific  and  historical  criticism,  and  no  one  knew 
what  would  emerge  when  the  amalgam  had  cooled. 
We  have  seen  how  this  confused  world,  and  the  tossed 
world  of  his  own  heart,  were  too  much  for  Arnold. 
He  could  not  escape  from  the  trouble  when  he  was 
young.  He  never  quite  escaped  from  it.  But  Rossetti 
did,  and  so  did  Morris. 

The  history  of  their  poetry  repeats  the  history  of  the 
poetry  of  Keats.  It  had  no  connexion  with  the  thoughts 
concerning  man  and  the  war  around  them  which  so 
deeply  influenced  poetry  from  Blake  to  Shelley.  The 
ideas  Shelley  sought  to  revive,  those  also  which  Byron 
drove  at  the  heads  of  men,  made  the  slightest  possible 
impression  on  Keats.  He  does  not,  on  the  whole,  seem 
to  be  aware  of  their  existence.  The  controversies, 
furies,  and  passions  which  had  collected  round  them  in 
the  realms  of  social,  political,  and  religious  thought, 
and  which  had  lashed  Byron  and  Shelley  into  poetic 


Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  147 

rage,  were  to  him,  if  ever  he  deigned  to  be  conscious  of 
them,  weariness  and  vexation  of  spirit.  And  the  con- 
dition of  the  England  in  which  he  lived  and  of  which 
he  said,  '  *  Glory  and  loveliness  have  passed  away, ' '  gave 
him  no  impulse.  He  did  not  go  to  Italy  or  Greece  in  the 
body,  but  he  fled  thither  in  the  spirit.  He  sought 
loveliness  and  young  ardours  in  fable,  in  love's  world 
of  myth,  legend,  and  tale.  There,  he  thought,  beauty 
lies  asleep,  and  I  will  be  the  young  prince  who  shall 
awake  her.  And  through  the  deep  undergrowth  not 
of  the  briar-rose,  but  of  thorn  and  thistle,  hemlock 
and  darnel,  his  fervid  spirit  pierced  its  way.  He  kissed 
the  princess  and  she  awoke  to  life.  Together  they 
brought  forth  a  new  poetry.  It  was  a  lovely  child, 
but,  unsupported,  unnourished  by  any  emotion  of  the 
present,  onl}'  living  in  the  past,  it  never  married  itself 
to  any  vital  power  in  the  England  of  its  day,  and  it 
had  then  no  children.  It  was  an  episode  in  the  great 
epic  of  poetry ;  and  when  the  new  movement,  about 
1832,  began  with  Tennyson  and  Browning  it  did  not 
follow  Keats  into  the  beauty  of  the  past ;  it  knit  itself  to 
living  emotions  and  ideas  of  the  present.  For  England 
had  then,  as  I  have  already  noticed  in  this  book, 
awakened  to  fresh  thought  and  national  passion,  to 
new  ideas  and  their  attendant  emotions ;  and  out  of 
these  proceeded  powers  of  action  which  ran  like  fire 
through  the  whole  body  of  men  and  women  who  loved 
thoughts,  and  thought  out  what  they  loved. 
That  is  a  slight  sketch  of  the  history  of  the  poetry  of 


148  Fo\ir  Victorian  Poets 

Keats.  I  have  elsewhere  expanded  it  and  do  not  wish 
to  repeat  it.  A  similar  history  nowVunfolded  itself. 
By  1853,  when  Rossetti  had  finished  the  poems  which 
we  find  in  his  first  volume,  the  ideas  and  their  impelling 
emotions  which  had  begun  to  shape  themselves  clearly 
in  1830,  which  had  awakened  in  England  a  political, 
religious,  and  social  movement,  and  which,  by  their 
passion,  had  stirred  Browning,  Tennyson,  and  others  to 
write  poetry — were  subjected  to  continual  attacks, 
rapidly  developing  through  the  following  years,  from 
historical  criticism  and  science.  Doubt,  especially  in 
the  case  of  the  religious  ideas,  collected  round  them. 
So  far  as  the  history  of  poetry  is  concerned,  the  strug- 
gle took  place  over  religious  conceptions,  both  those 
held  by  the  orthodox,  and  by  the  more  liberal  theolo- 
gians. The  ideas  accepted  with  joy  from  the  school 
of  which  Newman  was  the  moving  force,  or  from  the 
school  which  Maurice  may  be  said  to  have  founded, 
were  now  denied  or  at  least  subjected  to  a  cold  investi- 
gation. And  what  had  been  their  beauty  was  stained, 
till  there  was  little  or  no  pleasure  and  peace  left  in 
them  for  the  imagination.  Tennyson  and  Browning, 
however,  would  not  let  their  spiritual  essence  go. 
Browning  did  not  descend  into  the  arena  at  all,  nor 
was  he  one  whit  disturbed  by  the  noise  of  the  contest. 
He  went  quietly  on,  realising  his  own  soul  and  what  it 
had  to  say.  Tennyson  did  enter  into  the  fight,  and 
was  somewhat  disturbed  by  it.  In  Memoriam,  pub- 
lished in  1850,  records  what  he  thought  of  it  during 


Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  149 

the  years  between  1842  and  '50.  I^ater  on,  his  descrip- 
tion of  that  dim  grim  battle  in  the  West  where  Arthur 
died,  himself  in  doubt,  and  where  firiend  and  foe  were 
shadows  in  the  mist, 

And  friend  slew  friend,  not  knowing  wliom  he  slew. 
And  some  had  visions  out  of  golden  youth, 
And  some  beheld  the  faces  of  old  ghosts 
l/ook  in  upon  the  battle, 

was  his  record  of  this  time,  and  all  it  meant  for  those 
who,  in  its  war,  still  held  to  their  standards.  Nor  in- 
deed, when  he  wrote  the  Passing  of  Arthur^  was  his 
own  soul  freed  from  the  agony  of  the  battle.  Never- 
theless, he  did  not  give  way.  Like  St.  Paul,  "cast 
down  but  not  destroyed,"  there  were  certain  heights  of 
faith  and  thought  in  his  secret  soul  to  which,  undis- 
mayed, and  unheeding  of  the  confused  strife,  he  retired 
when  he  pleased.  But  the  others — down  in  the  heat 
of  the  contest,  on  the  burning  sand — we  have  seen  in 
what  a  condition  they  were  in  the  poetry  of  Clough  and 
Arnold.  Misery  and  restlessness ;  changing  and  di- 
vided thoughts  ;  doubts  and  longing  for  peace  and  calm  • 
nothing  left  but  duty ;  faith  retired  to  her  interlunar 
cave  ;  the  noise  and  confusion  of  the  battle  driving  men 
distracted  who  cared  for  the  ancient  ideals  ;  even  among 
those  who  had  no  poetic  instincts  a  certain  vague  dis- 
tress; beauty  gone,  ugliness  and  tumult  filling  the 
world  of  thought.  And  in  common  life,  materialism 
growing ;  conventions  and  maxims  again  tyrannising 
over  society ;    art,   creation,   imagination,    and    truth 


150  Fo\jr  Victorian  Poets 

utterly  gone  out  of  it.  This  was  the  state  of  things 
even  in  1847  when  Rossetti  began  to  write  poetry, 
much  more  in  1853  when  his  first  poems  were  finished, 
still  more  in  the  sixties  of  the  last  century. 

It  was  a  state  of  things  which  the  artist  nature 
rebelled  against,  as,  not  in  identical  but  in  similar  cir- 
cumstances, Keats  had  rebelled.  A  whole  tribe  of 
young  men,  to  whom  Rossetti  and  the  Pre-Raphaelite 
movement  and  afterwards  Morris,  Burne-Jones,  and 
others,  gave  expression,  were  weary  to  death  of  all 
the  turmoil  round  subjects  which  (as  they  were  pre- 
sented to  them  at  the  moment)  did  not  interest  them 
at  all,  much  less  excite  or  impel  them.  All  that  Arnold 
wrote  about  with  so  much  intensity,  all  the  waters  of 
thought  in  which  he  struggled,  were  as  little  to  them 
as  all  the  ideas  which  Byron  and  Shelley  wrote  of  were 
to  Keats.  They  broke  away  from  them,  like  Keats, 
into  another  world — a  new  world  of  beauty  and  art. 

The  theological  contests  were  outside  of  their  the- 
ology which  was  concerned,  when  it  existed,  and  for 
a  time  it  did  exist,  not  with  doctrine  and  its  battles, 
but  with  th^  inner  mystic  relation  between  the  per- 
sonal soul  and  the  divine,  between  the  saints,  angels, 
and  spirits  of  the  universe  and  their  own  spirit  here 
on  earth.  They  were,  in  their  early  career,  and  espe- 
cially Rossetti,  mystics  by  nature  and  grace.  Doubts 
did  not  trouble  them  at  all.  They  either  believed  or 
disbelieved.  Historical  criticism  and  science  bored 
them  to  extinction.     They  cried  :  ' '  Away  with  these 


Dante  Gabriel  IVossetti  151 

follies  and  phantasms.  That  which  actually  is,  is  not 
in  them.  They  are  in  the  apparent,  not  the  real  world. 
Why  should  we  walk  through  their  mud  and  lade  our- 
selves with  their  thick  clay?  The  constancy  of  energy, 
the  correlation  of  physical  forces,  natural  selection,  the 
struggle  for  existence,  the  descent  of  man,  whether 
the  Bible  be  infallible  or  not — if  it  be  beautiful  and 
instil  peace  is  all  we  care  for — are  outside  our  world. 
For  us,  they  might  as  well  be  discussed  in  Sirius.  Let 
us  get  away  from  this  vain  disquiet  to  quiet,  from 
futile  argument  to  fruitful  contemplation,  from  ma- 
terialism to  the  spiritual,  from  this  ugly  world  to  a 
beautiful  one,  from  theological  squabbles  to  religious 
symbols,  from  fighting  sects  to  the  invisible  Church, 
from  Science  and  its  quarrels  to  the  great  creations  of 
imagination,  from  convention  to  truth  in  art,  from 
imitation  of  dead  forms  of  art  to  Nature  herself.  I^et 
us  leave  a  world,  noisy,  base  through  money -seeking, 
torn  and  confused  with  physical  and  mental  ugliness, 
worried  with  dry  criticism  of  history  and  futile  con- 
tentions of  doctrine,  to  the  realm  of  pure  faith,  or,  if 
we  cannot  or  do  not  care  to  believe,  to  that  pure  image 
of  beauty  which  we  see  once  more  rising  from  the  Sea 
of  Time.  And  for  that  we  will  turn  back  to  the  by- 
gone centuries,  to  their  thought  and  their  work,  to  a 
world  noble,  lovely,  joyous,  full  of  passionate  subjects, 
close  to  Nature,  thrilling  with  possibilities  for  the 
imagination ;  a  world  which  believed  in  a  spiritual 
life ;  which  understood  how  to  love,  how  to  forgive, 


152  Foiir  Victorian  Poets 

how  to  live  in  honour,  how  to  despise  wealth  for 
beauty's  sake ;  and  which,  inspired  by  great  thoughts 
and  yielding  itself  to  natural  passion  and  its  joy, 
created  with  intelligent  rapture,  and  day  by  day, 
beautiful  things  in  all  the  arts. 

Such  was  the  spirit  of  these  men  and  such  their 
outlook  on  the  world.  It  was  a  spirit  and  an  outlook 
similar  (except  in  its  somewhat  transient  religious  or 
mystic  turn)  to  the  spirit  and  outlook  of  Keats.  And 
it  is  well  that  we  should  know, — and  especially  those 
who  think  sceptical  criticism  so  vitally  important,  and 
science  and  its  discoveries  and  the  anal5rtic  intellect 
with  its  nose  on  facts,  the  master-powers  of  the  world 
at  whose  footstool  all  should  bow;  and  conclusions 
established  by  pure  reasoning  as  the  only  truths; — 
that  there  are  still  a  whole  class  of  men  in  this  mani- 
fold world  of  ours  who  do  not  care  one  straw  for  all 
these  matters ;  to  whom  the  talk  about  them  and  their 
discoveries  are  practically  non-existent  in  thought ; 
who  would  not  be  very  sorry  if  they  were  all  forgotten ; 
who  live  outside  of  them  altogether,  and  think  them 
needless  ;  who  abhor  the  money- making  side  of  them ; 
and  who  believe  that  they  are  likely  to  do  serious 
damage — as  long  as  they  are  unbalanced  by  the  things 
which  make  for  imagination,  beauty,  and  the  spiritual 
life— to  high  morality,  to  the  love  of  perfection,  to 
man's  happiness,  and  to  the  true  progress  of  mankind. 
These  persons,  even  in  these  extremes,  it  is  to  be  hoped 
will  not  diminish.     They  provide  a  counterpoise  to  the 


Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  153 

tyrannies  of  the  scientific  intellect,  they  keep  up  the 
balance  of  power  in  human  life.  Silentl)^,  for  they 
make  no  noise  and  only  live  their  lives,  they  lead  men 
into  worlds  where  they  can  rest ;  and  even  in  igno- 
rance and  poverty  find  inward  wealth  and  joy  and 
sweet  content. 

In  his  day  Rossetti,  ignoring  the  science  and  caring 
nothing  for  the  contending  faiths  of  the  present,  began 
a  new  phase  of  that  ever-recurring  movement,  both  in 
poetry  and  painting.  Morris  followed  him  into  the 
realm  of  the  past,  but  separated  himself  more  deter- 
minately  from  a  present  he  detested  than  Rossetti. 
He  never  touched  for  years  a  single  political,  religious, 
scientific,  or  social  interest  of  his  own  time.  Rossetti 
did;  being,  as  a  poet^  more  manifold  than  Morris. 
What  interest  they  took  in  the  present  was  taken  in 
its  arts,  not  in  its  theological,  critical,  or  scientific 
work.  Holman  Hunt,  Millais,  and  afterwards  Burne- 
Jones,  flung  away,  as  artists,  the  traditions  which  ruled 
the  art  of  their  times,  and  went  back  to  the  early 
Italian  painters  for  the  spirit  in  which  they  conceived 
their  art  and  the  duty  they  owed  to  it.  They  filled 
their  pictures  with  thought  and  imaginative  symbol- 
ism, but  they  did  this  within  the  limits  of  a  careful 
and  steady  obedience  to  truth — truth  to  their  subjects 
and  truth  to  nature.  A  fresh  and  living  movement 
of  art  in  painting  and  drawing  was  bom  from  these 
endeavours. 

At  the  same  time,  and  filled  with  a  similar  spirit, 


154  Four  Victorian  Poets 

the  new  poetry  arose.  It  was  indeed  new.  No  one 
can  for  a  moment  bring  together  on  the  same  plane 
of  thought  or  imagination,  of  passion  or  of  the  recep- 
tion of  sensible  impressions,  the  poetry  of  Tennyson, 
Browning,  Clough,  or  Arnold,  and  the  poetry  of  Rossetti 
or  Morris.  The  air  is  different,  the  landscape  different, 
the  manner  of  thinking  and  feeling  different,  the  sub- 
jects different,  the  methods  and  the  aims  of  art  differ- 
ent, the  inspiration  drawn  from  different  sources,  and 
the  material  different.  It  was  as  new  a  poetical  world 
as  that  of  Keats  was  in  his  time.  It  was  also  an  inter- 
lude. It  had  no  children  or  none  of  any  importance. 
Its  apartness  from  the  present  made  it  delightful,  but  it 
condemned  it  to  sterility.  Its  analogy  in  that  to  the 
poetry  of  Keats  is  striking.  But  it  is  much  more 
striking  in  the  poetry  of  Morris  than  in  that  of  Rossetti. 
The  revolt  of  Morris  from  the  present  was  much 
greater.  Indeed,  Rossetti  more  or  less  maintained 
that  **all  work  to  be  truly  worthy" — and  I  quote 
words  he  has  put  into  the  mouth  of  a  character  in  the 
unfinished  story  of  St.  Agnes  of  Intercession— "  should 
be  wrought  out  of  the  age  itself,  as  well  as  out  of  the 
soul  of  its  producer,  which  must  needs  be  a  soul  of  the 
age."  He  did  not,  from  my  present  point  of  view, 
carry  out  that  sentence  fully  in  his  work,  but  he  came 
closer  to  it  than  was  the  case  with  the  poetry  Morris 
wrote  before  he  became  a  Socialist.  The  modem  ele- 
ment is  plain  in  his  treatment  of  Jenny,  though  the 
problem  is  universal.     The  Burden  of  Nineveh,  welds 


Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  155 

together  in  his  thought  London  and  Nineveh,  the 
religion,  the  future  and  the  fates  of  both ;  and  outside 
his  thoughts,  as  he  sees  the  winged  bull  brought  into 
the  British  Museum,  the  din  and  crowds  of  London  go 
by.  At  times,  the  political  interests  of  the  world  took 
hold  upon  him.  The  revolutionary  movement  of  1 848 
was  hailed  by  him,  when  priests  turned  white  and 
kings  were  in  the  dust.  He  hears  the  cry  of  Italy,  and 
the  Last  Confession^  in  itself  a  modem  poem,  is  thrilled 
throughout  with  the  Italian  hatred  of  Austria.  On  the 
Staircase  of  Notre  Dame^  on  the  Place  de  la  Bastille^  he 
feels  the  emancipation  of  Paris  and  the  world.  He 
denounced  the  atrocious  business  of  185 1.  He  wrote  a 
half-felt  ode  on  the  death  and  work  of  Wellington  in 
1852. 

Then,  there  are  short  poems,  of  a  delicate  and 
majestic  pity,  on  such  sorrowful  and  heart-subduing 
incidents  as  he  touched  in  daily  life.  Between  Holms- 
cote,  and  Hurstcote  is  a  lovely  example  of  this.  More- 
over, even  in  poems  which  treat  subjects  belonging  to 
a  remote  past,  there  is  often  a  modern  touch,  a  dim 
reference  to  the  temper  and  thoughts  of  the  modern 
world,  which  bring,  floating  into  the  antique  tale,  a 
breath,  a  wind,  from  the  life  of  the  nineteenth  century. 
These  wafts  of  modernism  often  give  body  to  his  mystic 
story,  and  a  strange  clearness  to  the  past  of  which  he 
writes. 

Again,  among  a  number  of  poems  which  treat  of  love 
and  other  passions,  and  belong  to  the  common  life  of 


156  Four  Victorian  Poets 

man  at  any  time,  there  are  a  few  which  are  concerned 
with  the  problems  of  Hfe,  moral  and  spiritual,  and 
which,  in  their  mode  of  thought  and  expression,  are 
entirely  modem— so  modem  that  even  now,  nearly 
fifty  years  after  they  were  written,  they  paint  our  souls. 
They  are  of  our  subtilty,  our  obscurity,  our  passionate 
self-extension ;  our  hopes,  fears,  faith,  and  faithless- 
ness. In  many  wandering  ways  of  careful  thought, 
they  ask  what  is  our  life.  Of  these  are  all  the  sonnets 
which  form  the  second  part  of  the  House  of  Life^ 
and  poems  like  the  Card  Dealer^  Cloud  Confines^  Sooth- 
say, and  a  few  others  of  less  value.  In  these,  love  be- 
tween the  sexes  which  forms  so  large  a  part  of  his 
poetry  can  scarcely  be  said  to  exist.  They  knit  them- 
selves with  a  singular  force  around  the  life  of  man,  his 
death,  his  pain,  and  his  pleasure.  They  are  weighty 
with  thought,  very  subtle,  yet  very  clear.  The  think- 
ing does  not  run  along  the  known  philosophic  lines. 
It  avoids  them,  as  if  truth  were  not  to  be  found  on 
their  roads.  It  moves,  on  the  contrary,  through  the 
windings,  impulses,  passionate  feelings  of  the  self- 
neglecting  soul,  thinking  and  feeding  in  its  silences 
around  the  memories,  the  regrets,  the  happiness  and  un- 
happiness  of  its  past,  around  the  hopes  and  fears  of  its 
future  ;  searching  into  the  fierce  remorse  and  the  stern 
demands  that  come  from  conscience ;  and  questioning 
those  aspirations  of  the  spirit  towards  the  unattainable 
perfection  which  deny  and  mock  analysis.  And,  above 
all,  they  ask,  with  reiterated  force — Why  are  things  as 


Dante  Oabriel  Rossetti  157 

they  are  ?  What  shall  we  do,  things  being  as  they  are  ? 
Soothsay  is  such  a  poem.  The  poetry  belonging  to 
these  matters  is  perhaps  the  greatest,  not  the  most 
beautiful,  of  all  his  work.  It  is  marked  by  so  mascu- 
line a  concentration  of  thought  and  wording  that  it 
demands  the  closest  attention  and  deserves  it.  It  is 
not  obscure  save  to  inattention.  On  the  contrary,  in 
spite  of  all  the  infoldings  of  thought  with  thought,  it 
is,  by  its  anxious  wording,  as  clear  as  a  mountain 
spring.  It  is  not  only  a  poetical  but  an  intellectual 
pleasure  to  follow  its  intricate  involutions,  made  beauti- 
ful at  every  step  by  the  play  of  a  passionate  imagina- 
tion. And  this  is  poetically  enhanced  by  the  careful 
art,  by  the  technique  which  is  not  satisfied  by  anything 
less  than  perfection,  and  which,  when  perfection  is 
not  reached,  makes  us  feel  that  it  has  been  struggled 
for  with  the  whole  force  and  eagerness  of  the  artist. 
One  example  of  this,  which  is  most  patent  in  the  son- 
nets, is  the  excellent  use  he  makes  of  long  I^atin  words 
which  seem  to  open  out  and  expand  the  thought  and 
set  it  into  a  rush  like  a  sudden  flood  over  wide  plains. 
Such  words  are  chiefly  adjectives,  but  they  are  so  used 
as  to  have  the  force  of  a  picture. 

Another  characteristic  of  this  graver  poetry  is  its 
unwearied  symbolism — incessant  images  in  words,  in 
the  sound  of  lines ;  illustrations  which  awaken  emo- 
tions or  ideas ;  images,  created  by  the  words,  which 
leap  into  the  vision  of  the  soul,  and  bring  with  them 
a  hundred  meanings,  suggestions,  memories,  and  pict- 


158  Foiar  Victorian  Poets 

ures.  Rossetti  is  a  master  of  this,  and  it  was  done  by 
him  in  painting  as  well  as  in  poetry.  In  poetry  he 
was  freer  than  in  painting,  and  he  used  his  freedom, 
sometimes  too  richly.  He  hurries  one  symbol  into 
another,  he  folds  and  enfolds  them  together  ;  they 
are  labyrinthine ;  yet  if  we  pursue  them,  we  reach  at 
last  their  centre,  and  their  central  thought,  with  their 
central  emotion.  Then,  when  we  reach  the  centre, 
all  the  involutions  are  understood.  There  is  no  one 
clearer  than  Rossetti.  It  may  be  that  some  of  this 
clearness  is  owing  to  the  music  of  the  verse.  That  is 
another  characteristic  of  his  poetry.  And  his  music 
does  not  seem  to  be  the  result  of  laborious  art,  but  of  a 
native  genius  for  sweet  sound.  Everywhere  we  find 
this  grace,  in  the  lighter  as  in  the  graver  poems.  I 
give  one  example  from  a  serious  sonnet.  Its  melody 
flows  like  a  soft  stream — 

When  vain  desire  at  last  and  vain  regret 
Go  hand  in  hand  to  death,  and  all  is  vain, 
What  shall  assuage  the  unforgotten  pain 
And  teach  the  unforgetful  to  forget  ? 

Lastly,  with  regard  to  these  serious  poems  which 
meet  the  questionings  of  modern  life,  some  have  said 
that  the  problems  they  treat  of  are  similar  to  those 
of  which  Arnold  wrote,  and  are  met  in  a  similar  way. 
That  is  not  the  case.  The  Stoic  solution,  for  example, 
never  occurs  to  Rossetti.  Moreover,  the  problems 
are  not  the  simple  ones  Arnold  meets  and  to  which 
the  intellect  naturally  applies  itself,  but  the  subtle. 


Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  159 

complicated  questions  of  the  spiritual  and  passionate 
life  which  are  altogether  outside  of  the  sphere  of  the 
intellect,  and  ignore  its  methods.  And,  finally,  the 
subjects  are  treated,  without  any  special  reference  to 
his  own  soul  or  to  his  own  time,  from  that  universal 
point  of  view  which  considers  human  nature  as  it  is 
independent  of  any  personal  feeling  or  of  any  isolated 
period.  The  later  sonnets  of  The  House  of  Life  and 
other  poems  of  a  similar  kind  belong  to  the  present  of 
human  nature,  but  they  also  belong  to  its  past  and  its 
future. 

I  turn  from  this  discussion  of  the  modem  element  in 
Rossetti' s  poetry  to  other  elements  belonging  to  it. 
When  we  read  the  earlier  poems,  beginning  with  The 
Blessed  Datnozel,  we  must  bring  to  our  reading  matters 
of  thought  imported  from  Italy  in  the  thirteenth  or 
fourteenth  centuries,  or  from  that  ancient  world  where 
Lancelot  and  Tristram  lived,  or  from  that  more  sacred 
and  earlier  world  which  gathered  its  emotions,  like 
flowers  round  a  house,  over  the  youth  of  Jesus,  the 
days  in  Jerusalem  after  the  Cross,  and  the  legends  of 
the  Early  Church.  The  elements  of  these  worlds  crept 
into  the  study  of  his  imagination,  were  quick  in  his 
thought,  and  move  out  of  his  poems,  even  when  they 
are  outside  of  the  Christian  realm,  into  our  reflection. 
They  leave  their  spirit  everywhere  in  his  verse,  like 
the  distant  scent  of  lavender  in  linen  long  laid  by  in 
oaken  presses. 


i6o  Four  Victorian  Poets 

Of  these  elements  Italy  was  the  chief— the  Italy  of 
Dante,  and  the  poets  who  with  him  created  Italian 
poetry ;  nor  was  modern  Italy  forgotten  or  unrepre- 
sented. It  could  not  have  been  otherwise.  His  mother 
was  half  Italian.  His  father,  Gabriele  Rossetti,  was  a 
native  of  the  Kingdom  of  Naples,  a  man  of  letters,  a 
poet  and  patriot ;  forced  to  flee  from  the  tyranny  of 
Ferdinand  I.,  and  well  known  in  England  as  a  com- 
mentator and  exponent  of  Dante.  From  his  childhood 
Rossetti  was  trained  to  love  his  father's  land,  and  its 
greatest  poet,  and  his  poetry  as  well  as  his  painting 
were  filled  with  the  subjects  and  redolent  of  the  mys- 
ticism of  the  wisdom- worn  Italian.  Yet  so  strong  was 
Rossetti 's  clear  individuality  that  no  one  can  say  he 
was  an  imitator  of  Dante.  Whatever  he  drew  from 
Dante  he  passed  through  the  crucible  of  his  own  soul, 
and  so  mingled  it  with  his  own  material  that  the  re- 
sult was  incontestably  his  own.  His  spirit  was  dom- 
inant in  it,  not  Dante's.  Moreover,  it  was  not  only 
the  austere  and  tender  spirit  of  Dante  of  which  he 
drank  deep,  but  the  pleasanter  and  lighter  spirit  of 
the  men  who  before  and  after  Dante  made  poetry 
within  his  circle.  With  these  also  he  sympathised, 
but  he  drank  more  of  their  manner,  a  manner  which 
was  common  to  them  all,  than  of  their  matter.  For 
Rossetti,  like  Dante,  was  always  somewhat  severe, 
serious,  even  grim  at  times,  when  he  wrote  poetry. 
There  was,  indeed,  another  side  to  Rossetti — a  wild, 
mocking  Bohemian  side,  full  of  grim  sarcastic  humour. 


Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  i6i 

but  this  did  not  intrude  into  either  of  the  arts  he 
practised.  The  solemnities  of  our  earthly  life  and  of 
its  passions  more  than  its  gaiety  or  pleasure  were  in 
this  poetry  daily  guests.  And  his  methods  of  writing, 
his  style,  his  correction  and  finish,  were  as  severe,  as 
strictly  conscientious  to  his  art,  as  those  of  Dante  or 
Milton.  Otherwise,  I  do  not  compare  him  to  them. 
The  limits  of  Dante  and  Milton  extend  beyond  our 
ken.  The  limits  of  Rossetti  are  clearly  within  our  ken. 
But  within  them  his  matter  and  his  manner  were  nobly 
grave,  severe,  temperate,  and  controlled,  almost  too 
controlled  at  times  to  have  the  ease  and  naturalness 
of  the  greater  poets. 

The  manner  then  of  his  work  was  largely  influenced 
by  the  early  Italian  poets,  even  by  their  perversity  of 
logic  in  amorous  poetry,  but  was  not  imitated  from 
them.  His  vivid,  intense  individuality  burnt  up  the 
possibility  of  imitation.  Whatever  he  gripped,  he 
gripped  in  his  own  way  ;  and  the  way  was  original. 
And  all  that  I  have  here  said  concerning  the  Italian 
influence  in  his  poetry  might  be  even  more  fully  said  of 
his  works  as  a  painter. 

Again,  one  might  expect  that  his  poetry  would  be 
greatly  influenced  by  mediaeval  romance,  especially  by 
the  multitudinous  tale  of  Arthur,  with  its  dependen- 
cies. It  may  be  said  of  him  with  truth  that  he  was 
Galahad  on  one  side  of  his  nature  and  Tristram  on  an- 
other. But  though  he  loved  the  tale,  and  oftentimes 
discussed  it,  it  scarcely  ever  appears,  even  in  allusion. 


i62  Fovir  Victorian   Poets 


in  his  poetry .  The  story  seized  on  contemporary  poetry  ; 
it  did  not  seize  on  his  ;  and  this,  like  many  other  things, 
isolates  the  man.  The  Italian  genius  separated  him 
from  the  Celtic  and  Teutonic  elements  in  the  cycle  of 
Arthur.  Indeed,  I  have  observed  that  those  poets  on 
whom  the  shadow  of  Dante  falls,  with  whom  Italy 
dwells  as  a  mistress,  are  not  only  freed  from  the  Celtic 
glamour,  but  out  of  harmony  with  the  Celtic  tempera- 
ment. The  I^atin  nature  does  not  agree  with  the  Celtic. 
It  is  too  serious,  and  life  presents  itself  under  too  grave 
an  aspect  for  such  agreement.  Moreover,  all  through 
the  Arthurian  tale — I  do  not  speak  of  its  later  modifi- 
cations in  Germany — the  passions,  and  above  all  the 
passion  of  love  and  the  passion  of  war,  are  lightly  felt 
in  comparison  with  the  profound  and  grim  impetuosity 
of  the  way  they  are  felt  by  the  Italian  people.  And  it 
was  so  Rossetti  felt  them.  There  was  nothing  Celtic 
or  indeed  Teutonic  about  him  or  his  poetry.  In  this 
also,  he  wholly  differed  from  Morris  who,  in  spite  of 
his  being  partly  Celtic  by  descent,  had  Teutonic  rather 
than  Celtic  elements  dominant  in  his  nature.  Except 
in  his  intense  individuality,  his  extraordinary  eye  for 
colour  and  his  love  for  it,  and  in  a  certain,  but  not  com- 
mon, affection  for  the  wilder  forms  of  natural  scenery, 
Morris  was  little  of  a  Celt.  The  Arthur  legend  caught 
him,  it  is  true,  but  it  was  in  its  mediaeval,  not  in  its 
Celtic,  forms. 

Then  again,  the  Celtic  genius  is  somewhat  disordered. 
It  does  not  willingly  submit  to  the  logic  of  the  imagin- 


^ 


Dante  Oabriel  Rossetti  163 

ation,  nor  is  its  imagination  ridden  with  a  curb.  But 
the  Italian  genius  loves  order,  strict  arrangement  of 
thought,  fixed  and  chosen  limits  wherein  to  exercise 
itself,  well  linked  emotions  bound  together  by  one  dom- 
inant idea.  Its  imagination  is  not  fettered,  but  it  moves 
of  its  own  will,  under  self-chosen  laws.  It  is  also 
always  controlled  for  the  sake  of  the  fiill  and  clear 
expression  of  the  subject.  And  all  this  is  sternly 
characteristic  of  Rossetti' s  poetry.  It  is  a  pleasant  ex- 
ercise, when  one  has  leisure,  to  follow  the  intricate 
windings — as  of  some  mediaeval  designer — of  the  imag- 
inative reason  through  any  one  of  Rossetti' s  sonnets. 
We  cannot  find  anything  more  fiercely  beaten  into 
order,  yet  so  closely  set  on  beauty  as  an  end,  in  English 
literature.  It  is  not  really  English  ;  it  is  Italian,  and 
it  divides  Rossetti  from  his  poetic  comrades.  There  is 
not  a  trace  of  it  in  Morris  or  in  Swinburne.  Though 
he  communicated  to  them  a  series  of  impulses  from  his 
originating  genius,  yet  he  gave  them  nothing  of  this  ; 
or  rather  they  could  not  receive  it.  He  was  left  alone 
with  this  part  of  himself,  and  severely  alone  he  re- 
mained with  it. 

At  another  point  he  was  Italian,  not  English — in  his 
love-poetry.  It  was  accused  of  sensualism,  but  all  its 
tendency  is,  in  truth,  toward  a  noble  chastity  in  the 
natural  affairs  of  love.  As  to  the  accusation,  and  the 
controversy  arising  from  it,  I  will  content  myself  with 
saying — as  most  intelligent  persons  came  to  say,  includ- 
ing his   accuser — that  the  accusation  was  false  and 


i64  Four  Victorian  Poets 

unworthy.  Yet  I  can  partly  understand  how  it  came 
to  be  made,  though  I  cannot  understand  a  brother  in 
poetry  having  either  the  heart  or  the  want  of  intelli- 
gence to  make  it.  It  was  really  Italian  and  not  Knglish 
love-poetry  which  Rossetti  wrote,  and  so  vitally  dif- 
ferent from  the  English  way  of  feeling  and  speaking  of 
love-passion,  that,  when  it  fell  on  English  ears  and  es- 
pecially on  I^owland  Scottish  ears  where  it  touched  the 
ingrained  puritanism  of  a  Teutonic  people,  it  was  to 
them  like  listening  to  a  foreign  tongue  which  because 
folk  do  not  understand,  they  think  to  be  out  of  nature. 
It  was  really  the  difference  of  national  genius  which 
was  at  the  root  of  the  accusation. 

The  warmth,  the  glow,  the  white  fire  of  Rossetti' s 
love-poetry,  the  concentration  of  the  whole  being  for 
the  time  of  writing,  to  the  exclusion  of  all  else,  on  the 
passion  of  the  hour  or  the  life,  which  is  characteristic 
of  the  Italian  poets,  and  especially  of  Dante,  who  lays 
all  the  realms  of  feeling,  spirit,  and  intellect  at  the  feet 
of  his  love,  astounded  the  English  nature ;  and  what- 
ever astonishes  England  revolts  her  till  she  slowly 
comes  to  understand  it.  She  had  been  for  a  long  time  un- 
accustomed to  love-poetry  of  this  kind .  We  shall  find  no 
parallel,  not  even  in  Bums,  to  Rossetti' s  love-poetry  till 
we  get  back  to  the  Elizabethans,  who  themselves  were 
deeply  influenced  by  the  Italian  poetry.  Shakespeare's 
sonnets  are  steeped  in  Italy,  and  there  are  no  love-son- 
nets in  English  lyiterature  which  in  concentrated  thought 
approach  those  of  Shakespeare,  except  Rossetti' s. 


Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  165 

Then,  English  love-poetry  is  eh^efly  concerned  with 
the  growth  of  love,  its  aspirations,  the  results  it  has  on 
life  while  its  end  is  as  yet  un attained;  or  with  that 
which  follows  on  the  attainment  of  love — its  regrets, 
its  quiet  pleasures,  its  miseries,  its  fancies  or  its  ruin. 
Italian  poetry  and  Rossetti' s— even  where  it  takes  simi- 
lar subjects  of  love  as  English  poetry — is  concerned 
with  all  these  subjects  raised  to  intensity;  with  love  in 
all  its  forms  at  their  height,  and  with  all  the  world 
brought  into  fiery  union  with  it.  We  see  in  English 
love-poetry  all  the  landscape  of  love's  country.  We 
see  in  Italian,  and  in  Rossetti,  the  sun  of  love  itself 
which  made  the  landscape.  That  is  another  reason, 
arising  out  of  national  difference,  which  made  this 
poetry,  at  its  first  appearance,  strange,  and  therefore 
objectionable,  to  English  folk. 

Moreover,  and  this  is  perhaps  the  most  important 
thing,  English  love-poetry,  when  it  is  sensuous,  which 
is  rare,  is  for  the  most  part  unmixed  with  any  spiritual 
feeling;  and  when  it  is  spiritualised,  which  is  com- 
mon, is  kept  apart  from  the  elements  of  sense.  Except 
in  a  very  few  men — among  whom  I  may  instance  Dr. 
Donne,  and  he  insists  on  the  sensuous  too  much  for 
the  spirit — there  is  little  intense  and  complete  admix- 
ture of  the  sensuous  and  spiritual  elements  of  love  in 
English  poetry.  There  is  such  an  admixture  in  the 
best  Italian  poetry;  even  in  the  lower  poetry,  in 
poetry  frankly  sensual,  the  spiritualising  element 
steals  in.     But  in  Rossetti' s  love-poetry  this  complete 


^^^  ^o\jr  Victorian  Poets 

fusion  of  the  si..^^  ^^^  ^^^  g^^s^  is  expressed  more 
intimately  than  in  any  Itaiia..  ^^^try,  because  he  was 
partly  English,  and  England  gave  him  moxv>  ^oti.cpiicc  ; 
and  more  intensely  than  in  any  English  poetry,  be- 
cause he  was  three-fourths  Italian.  Those  times  in 
love  between  man  and  woman  when  the  sensuous  ele- 
ment is  lifted  by  pure  joy  and  emotion  into  the  spirit- 
ual world  and  there  transfigured ;  and  when  the 
spiritual  element  is  brought  into  the  sensuous  till  it  is 
made,  as  it  were,  palpable,  embodied,  incarnated — 
when  both  sense  and  spirit  are  fused  into  one  fire — in 
those  love  is  best  known,  best  felt  and  best  expressed, 
and  they  are  of  love's  finest,  purest,  most  exalted 
power.  No  one  in  England  has  shaped  them  into 
words  like  Rossetti ;  and  he,  feeling  their  clear  purity 
and  beauty,  thought  himself  licensed  to  express  them. 
They  are  a  thousand  years  away  from  sensualism,  but 
the  strangeness  and  uniqueness  of  them  in  English 
poetry  jarred  at  first  the  English  nature,  and  especially 
on  its  reserve.  I  am  not,  however,  sure  that  this  reve- 
lation of  the  central  heart  of  love  is  not  too  intimate 
for  words.  It  is  there,  if  anywhere,  that  I  should 
challenge  the  love-poetry  of  Rossetti. 

The  love -poetry  is  of  the  finest  Italian  quality  in  the 
Sonnets,  where  he  was  forced  to  pack  what  he  thought 
and  felt  into  fourteen  lines,  and  to  arrange  its  develop- 
ment in  obedience  to  a  strict  rule.  When  he  was  not 
thus  limited  his  love-poetry  is  less  excellent.  It 
wanders  into  so  many  side  issues  that  its  passion  is 


Dante  Oabriel  Rossetti  167 

ravelled.  It  runs  to  so  great  a  length  in  consequence 
that  the  reader  who  expected  and  almost  hoped  to  be 
burnt  alive,  is  only  warmer  by  its  ashes.  This  is  the 
case  with  The  Stream's  Secret^  with  Love's  Nocturn 
in  spite  of  its  many  fascinating  verses.  The  Song  of 
the  Bower  is  far  better  than  these,  true  throughout  to 
its  subject.  Its  subject  is  common  in  experience,  and 
its  feeling  deep,  but  more  fitted  perhaps  for  a  woman 
than  for  a  man.  The  strength  of  love  in  The  Blessed 
Damozel  is  deeper,  more  speechless — all  that  is  said 
is  thought  not  actually  expressed  by  the  woman — and 
more  united,  than  in  any  other  love-lyric  Rossetti 
wrought.  Infinite  regret,  infinite  hope  mingle  their 
emotions  in  it.  It  is  illuminated  by  many  images, 
many  pictures,  but  these  are  so  full  of  the  one  passion, 
that  their  number  and  variety  concentrate  rather  than 
disperse  it.  Moreover,  although  they  adorn  it  with  a 
beauty  not  of  the  earth  but  of  heaven,  yet  the  emo- 
tions of  the  earth  are  intense  within  the  heavenly 
loveliness.  It  is  a  mixture,  strange,  complex,  and 
beautiful. 

Again,  there  are  many  love-lyrics,  some  light,  some 
sad,  on  transient  phases  of  love — its  memories  of  joy 
and  sorrow,  its  regrets  for  lost  opportunities,  its  brood- 
ings  on  happiness  which  might  have  been  and  was  not, 
its  ruins  and  its  raptures,  in  the  past,  its  despondent 
hopes,  its  changes  and  why  they  came,  its  false  eco- 
nomics, its  true  extravagance — lyrics  such  as  First  Love 
Remembered^    Sudden  Light,  Plighted  Promise,    Three 


1 68  Koiar  Victorian  Poets 

Shadows^  A  Little  While^  Spheral  Change^  and  others 
a  few  of  which  are  light  and  gay. 

It  is  in  the  sonnets  of  the  first  part  of  The  House 
of  Life  that  Rossetti's  love-poetry  ought  most  to  be 
studied.  The  atmosphere  which  they  breathe  and 
which  fills  them  is  not  English.  It  is  chiefly  Italian, 
but  not  pure  Italian.  It  is  mingled  with  English  ele- 
ments, and  this  separates  them  into  a  class  apart  from 
either  England  or  Italy.  They  stand  alone,  and  this 
loneliness  of  theirs  is  part  of  their  charm  to  those  readers 
who  are  fond  of  the  unique  in  literature.  Of  course 
they  belong,  therefore,  to  the  particular,  not  the  uni- 
versal, and  to  the  particularly  particular,  like  those 
specialised  manufacturers  of  porcelain  of  which  only 
twenty  or  thirty  examples  exist  in  the  world.  This 
rarity  also  pleases  their  readers,  but  restricts  the  num- 
ber of  them.  They  do  not  appeal,  like  the  highest 
poetry,  to  the  multitude;  and  this  particularity  is 
enhanced  by  the  strangeness  to  English  readers  of 
their  Italian  manner  of  thought  and  imaging.  That 
manner  also,  in  its  complexity  of  expression  and  its 
multitudinous  imagery,  seems  to  us  to  disperse  and 
dishevel  their  emotion.  It  is  only  when  we  are  accus- 
tomed to  it,  that  we  discover  to  our  surprise  that  it 
enhances  it.  Their  elaborate  thought,  their  subtle 
logical  intellectualism  seems  also  to  take  them  away 
firom  the  simplicity  of  love,  to  diminish  its  intensity, 
even  to  chill  it.  But  this  is  of  the  very  nature  of  such 
Italian  sonnets  as  those  of  the   Vita  Nuova  and,  as 


Dante   Gabriel  Rossetti  169 

before,  a  little  trouble  enables  us  to  feel  that  passion 
has  entered  into  the  intellectual  work,  and  is  in  it 
like  a  fire.  A  sonnet  itself  demands  concentration  of 
thought  and  emotion.  Its  form  creates  intensity,  or 
ought  to  create  it.  And  in  these  sonnets  of  Rossetti 
thought  and  emotion  are  packed  as  closely  as  the  sum- 
mer sprays  and  leaves  are  packed  in  the  winter  sheaths 
of  a  beechen  spray.  Their  concentration  makes  their 
heat.  It  is  too  hot  for  flame — "each  of  its  own  arduous 
fulness  reverent." 

Their  subject  is  I/)ve,  but  Love  for  the  most  part 
in  its  momentary  phases.  They  seem  to  spring  from 
any  daily  experience ;  from  writing  a  letter,  walking 
in  a  wood,  a  flash  of  sunlight,  from  all  his  mistress 
does  and  is,  her  hands,  her  voice,  her  eyes,  from  the 
changes  of  the  seasons  and  the  weather,  from  dreams 
which  picture  her,  and  moods  which  recall  her  moods — 
yet,  however,  the  subject  changes,  one  I^ove  is  domi- 
nant over  the  changes  and  in  it  every  subject  glows. 
And  as  the  main  subject  is  love,  and  beauty  is  the 
form  of  love,  each  sonnet  seeks  at  every  point  to  be 
and  to  secure  beauty  of  form,  of  expression,  in  the 
parts  and  in  the  whole.  It  is  owing  to  this  seeking  of 
beauty  that  their  symbolism  is  so  multitudinous,  for 
by  symbolism  beauty  can  most  easily  be  suggested. 
Into  certain  melodies  of  words,  into  adjectives  which 
awaken  associations,  into  illustrations  drawn  from 
nature,  into  impersonations  of  states  of  the  soul, 
Rossetti  packs  his  symbols,  so  that  not  unfrequently 


lyo  Four  Victorian  Poets 

every  one  of  the  fourteen  lines  of  the  sonnet  has  its 
awakening  symbol,  each  illuminating  and  intensifying 
the  subject  of  the  whole.  I  quote  the  following  son- 
net— SouPs  Beauty.  It  illustrates  what  I  have  tried  to 
say,  and  is  itself  a  noble  example  of  his  sonnet-poetry : 

Under  the  arch  of  Life,  where  love  and  death, 
Terror  and  mystery,  guard  her  shrine,  I  saw 
Beauty  enthroned;  and  though  her  gaze  struck  awe, 

I  drew  it  in  as  simply  as  my  breath. 

Hers  are  the  eyes  which,  over  and  beneath. 

The  sky  and  sea  bend  on  thee, — which  can  draw. 
By  sea  or  sky  or  woman,  to  one  law. 

The  allotted  bondsman  of  her  palm  and  wreath. 

This  is  that  Lady  Beauty,  in  whose  praise 

Thy  voice  and  hand  shake  still, — long  known  to  thee 
By  flying  hair  and  fluttering  hem, — the  beat 
Following  her  daily  of  thy  heart  and  feet. 
How  passionately  and  irretrievably. 

In  what  fond  flight,  how  many  ways  and  days  ! 

It  remains  to  say  that  this  love-poetry  is  only  of 
love  between  the  sexes,  and  within  a  limited  area  of 
that  love.  It  seems  a  pity  that  so  much  good  poetry, 
subtle  feeling,  careful  thought  and  art  should  be  ex- 
pended on  a  kind  of  love  which,  however  varied  its 
phases,  is,  when  it  is  made  the  sole  interest  of  Ufe,  so 
fleeting  and  so  isolating.  It  is  natural,  even  needful, 
to  pass  through  its  house  in  youth,  but  men  and  women 
have  other  and  fairer  houses  to  dwell  in  permanently. 
All  the  greater  poets  have  felt  this.  They  have  written 
lyrics  of  this  passion,  but  these  are  only  incidental. 
Their  real  work  is  elsewhere  in  humanity.     Rossetti 


Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  171 

!  gave  too  much  to  this  business  of  love.  Yet,  if  we  are 
to  have  it,  it  was  well  to  have  it  excellently  done,  and 
it  is  so  done. 

\ 

I  pass  on  to  the  mysticism  of  his  poetry.  It  is 
difficult  to  characterise  it  because  it  was  so  complex. 
It  was  compounded  of  many  elements,  and  they  fre- 
quently contradict  one  another.  But  he  had  a  way,  like 
Ruskin  and  others,  of  inducing  apparent  contradic- 
tories to  live  within  him  in  an  amiable  harmony.  He 
cherished,  for  example,  at  one  time  of  his  life,  quite 
an  ascetic  turn,  but  at  the  same  time,  thoroughly 
disliking  the  principles  of  asceticism,  he  gave  to  the 
body  its  ftdl  value  in  his  work.  He  had  faith  in  a 
divine  love  when  he  wrote  his  early  poetry,  and  he 
knew  what  he  believed,  and  yet  he  had  a  curious  turn 
for  superstition,  which  arises  straight  out  of  fear  and 
ignorance  of  the  gods.  Such  harbouring  of  contra- 
dictories in  one  soul  is  characteristic  of  a  certain  type 
of  mysticism  and  has  sometimes  been  tranferred  to 
philosophy. 

It  is  difficult  also  to  explain  mysticism  in  Rossetti, 
because  it  is  difficult  to  define  mysticism  itself.  It 
shows  a  diflferent  aspect  in  every  man  who  is  affected 
by  it.  But  generally  speaking  it  is  that  temper  of 
mind  and  feeling  which  considers  the  apparent  world 
and  all  its  ways  as  not  real,  except  relatively  to  our 
constitution  ;  and  the  invisible  world  of  the  spirit  and 
of  life,  outside  of  our  world  of  sense-perception,  the 


172  Fo\ir  Victorian  Poets 

real  world.  And  that  is  Rossetti's  position  as  a  poet. 
It  makes  his  poetry  difiScult  to  that  large  class  of 
persons  who  have  no  mystic  tendency,  to  whom  all 
mysticism  appears  impossible.  The  appeal  then  of 
his  mysticism  is  to  a  small  class  at  present ;  and  though 
his  range  within  its  circle  over  many  and  various  sub- 
jects is  remarkable,  yet  the  circle  itself  is  a  small  one. 
On  the  whole,  so  widespread  through  his  poetry  is  this 
mystic  element,  that  I  doubt  whether  he  will  ever 
come  to  be  read  extensively  until  the  spiritual  view  of 
the  universe  has  conquered  the  materialistic  view.  At 
present,  in  the  midst  of  the  loud  yelling  of  the  armies 
of  materialism,  Rossetti's  voice  is  not  likely  to  be 
heard  at  large. 

At  first  there  was  a  touch  of  asceticism  in  his  mysti- 
cism, not  that  which  crushes  or  despises  the  body  on 
the  ground  that  all  matter  is  evil  (that  was  repugnant 
to  him),  but  that  which  restrains  appetite  and  sense- 
enjoyment  in  order  to  be  able  to  contemplate  more 
quietly  and  to  realise  more  fully  spiritual  ideas  and  the 
spiritual  world  in  an  impassioned  imagination;  and, 
again,  in  order  to  feel  his  own  soul  in  direct  contact 
with  a  spiritualised  world.  In  his  pursuit  of  the  arts, 
he  made  both  painting  and  poetry  partakers  of  this 
endeavour.  It  would  be  easy  to  illustrate  this  effort 
by  self-control  to  rise  above  the  apparent  from  his  early 
painting,  but  that  is  outside  my  subject.  It  is  not  easy 
to  illustrate  this  mystic  asceticism  from  his  earlier 
poetry,  because  it  only  pervades  it,  is  not  defined  in  it. 


Dante  Gabriel   Rossetti  173 

It  lingers  in  it  like  a  scent  of  unseen  flowers,  like  a  dim 
music  heard  over  misty  waters — and  this  almost  sensi- 
ble appeal  to  the  world  of  the  soul,  chiming  through 
the  verse,  is  especially  comforting  to  those  of  the  same 
temper  of  mind,  and  secludes  him  as  their  poet.  Nor 
was  it  unrepresented  otherwise  in  his  family.  In 
another  direction,  with  a  clear  religious  passion,  and 
with  that  doctrinal  foundation  in  which  Rossetti  had 
no  interest,  his  sister,  Christina,  was  a  mystic.  Her 
unreligious  poems  are  those  of  a  mystic.  As  to  her 
religious  poems,  and  her  treatment  in  them  of  the  soul 
and  life  of  man,  nothing  so  deeply  felt,  so  poetically 
conceived,  so  lyrically  pure,  has  been  written  in 
England. 

If  we  wish  to  feel  what  Rossetti* s  mysticism  was  in 
the  early  days,  when  he  was  nineteen  years  old,  and  at 
the  same  time  to  know  what  his  aspirations  were  as  an 
artist,  and  the  foundations  of  his  artistic  thought,  it  is 
well  to  read  Hand  and  Soul,  a  little  tale  pubUshed  in 
1850  in  The  Germ,  a  magazine  started  to  represent  the 
principles  and  spread  the  ideas  of  the  Pre-Raphaelite 
Brotherhood.  It  is  a  literary  jewel — opal,  ruby,  and 
sapphire  in  one.  It  is  steeped  through  and  through, 
in  every  sentence,  in  every  turn  of  expression,  in 
thought  and  feeling,  with  his  personality  ;  written  as 
it  were  by  the  soul  itself.  The  little  book  then  has  one 
of  the  elements  of  a  fine  style.  And  in  other  points — 
in  clearness,  in  naturalness,  in  ease,  in  constant  sur- 
prise, in  excellent  arrangement— the  style  is  as  good  as 


174  Fo\ir  Victorian  Poets 


the  stuflf.  Moreover,  with  all  its  mysticism,  the  medi 
aeval  time  and  the  mise  en  sctne^  especially  the  fierce 
swift  outburst  of  the  two  noble  factions  into  wild  war 
in  the  streets  of  Pisa,  are  given  with  a  masterly  realism 
which  makes  a  delightful  contrast  with  the  mysticism. 
On  that  realism  in  Rossetti  I  shall  touch  hereafter. 
At  present  I  refer  to  one  more  element  in  his  poetry 
which  is  indirectly  linked  with  his  mysticism. 

The  love  of  the  supernatural — in  weird,  uncommon 
or  ghastly  forms,  of  witcheries  and  charms,  apparitions 
and  ghostly  enemies,  of  all  that  half-human,  half-spirit- 
ual world  which  hovers  and  works,  as  some  think,  in 
a  zone  between  earth  and  heaven — is  an  oflfshoot,  in  a 
certain  temper  of  mind,  of  mysticism.  That  it  is  so  is 
a  matter  of  history.  And  Rossetti  when  it  pleased  him 
to  get  into  this  world,  did  so  with  a  peculiar  pleasure. 
It  did  not  master  him.  He  dominated  it,  otherwise  he 
could  not  have  written  about  it  with  such  imaginative 
intensity,  with  so  close  a  grasp,  as  he  does,  for  example, 
in  Sister  Helen.  We  feel,  as  we  read,  that  the  woman 
and  the  vengeance  were  fact,  that  such  a  power  ex- 
ists, that  her  belief  in  her  spell  is  justified ;  but  we 
also  feel  that  Rossetti  is  master  of  his  realisation ; 
stands  without  it  as  its  maker,  while  he  is  within  it,  as 
its  conceiver.  He  believes,  by  imagination,  in  the 
wasting  of  the  woman's  betrayer  as  the  waxen  figure 
melts,  but  the  high  reason  of  the  artist  has  no  belief 
in  it. 

Having  this  double  power  over  his  conceptions  and 


\ 


Dante   Gabriel   Rossetti  175 

his  art,  he  loves  to  imagine  and  shape  art-subjects  in 
this  supernatural  world.  One  of  his  favourite  stories 
was  the  story  of  I^ilith  and  Adam,  and  he  wrote  a  wild 
poem  upon  it.  One  of  his  favourite  books  was  Sidonia 
the  Sorceress^  a  book  of  Meinhart's.  One  of  the  grim- 
mest, weirdest  of  all  his  designs  was  of  two  lovers 
meeting  their  wraiths  in  a  wood,  and  seeing  their  ghostly 
presentment  in  a  light  half  fire,  half  gold ;  a  mist  of 
fateful  flame.  "How  we  met  ourselves"  is  its  title. 
Rose  Mary  is  full  of  black  magic,  of  evil  spirits  in 
precious  stones,  of  unearthly  beings  that  betray  men 
and  women  who  trust  in  them ;  and  the  poetry  is,  to  its 
very  sound  and  movement,  veiled  by  a  supernatural 
mist,  like  that  which  broods  in  Christabel.  The  studies 
in  prose,  like  the  St.  Agnes  of  Intercession,  and  the 
schemes  for  poems  drawn  up  in  prose —  The  Orchard  Pit, 
The  Doom  of  the  Sirens,  Michael  Scott's  Wooi7ig,  The 
Philtre,  show  how  much  his  imagination  loved  to 
wander  in  this  distant  land,  and  how  well  fitted  he  was 
to  cope  with  it  and  impress  us  with  its  atmosphere. 

The  only  poet,  at  this  point,  with  whom  I  can  com- 
pare Rossetti— not  in  the  poetry  itself,  but  in  a  similar 
love  of  this  kind  of  subject,  and  a  similar  power  of 
creating  its  atmosphere — is  Coleridge,  for  whose  few 
years  of  fine  work  Rossetti  had  a  deep  admiration. 
The  Ancient  Mariner,  Christabel,  The  Three  Graves 
move  and  have  their  being  in  this  dusky,  unhuman 
world  and  breathe  its  air  with  magic  ease.  Nor  does 
the  parallel  fail  in  other  particulars.     Coleridge,  too, 


176  Fovir  Victorian  Poets 


1 


was  steeped  in  mysticism  of  the  noble  sort ;  and  this, 
with  far  more  distinctiveness  of  religion  than  Rossetti 
knew,  pervades  his  poetry.  And  Coleridge,  also,  like 
Rossetti,  while  he  infiltrated  his  soul  into  the  characters 
who  made,  or  were  subjected  to,  his  supematuralism,  so 
that  we  must  believe  in  them  as  we  read,  is  yet,  in  his 
artist  will  and  reason,  in  his  shaping  power,  the  master 
of  the  things  he  made ;  is  on  a  higher  mystic  plane 
than  they.  In  that  higher,  simpler,  spiritual  world  he 
and  the  young  Rossetti  lived.  From  it  they  descended 
to  touch  and  vivify  the  lower  supernatural.  Into  it, 
when  they  had  done  that  work,  they  easily  re-ascended. 
In  curious  opposition  or  contrast  to  this  love  of  the 
supernatural  was  Rossetti' s  realism,  his  pleasure  in 
facts,  in  things  as  they  are  in  the  present,  as  they  were 
in  the  past ;  only,  being  an  artist,  he  chose  the  facts 
he  represented  for  the  sake  of  their  beauty  and  loving- 
ness,  and  composed  them  as  his  imagination  saw  them. 
The  form  was  imaginative  ;  but  the  materials  used  were 
so  chosen  and  arranged  as  to  be  strictly  true  to  nature. 
When  Turner  painted  a  landscape,  the  form  he  gave  it 
was  conceived  firom  the  impression  the  landscape  made 
upon  him.  In  accordance  with  the  emotion  of  that 
impression  he  composed  not  only  the  whole  but  the 
detail  of  his  picture.  It  might  or  might  not  resemble 
the  place  which  had  produced  the  impression,  but  it 
exactly  resembled  what  his  soul  had  seen  and  his  im- 
agination had  shaped  within  him.  The  beauty,  the 
voice,  the  spirit  of  the  picture,  the  intelligence  which 


Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  177 

fled  through  it,  were  born  out  of  his  soul  striving  for 
beauty.  That  was  the  mystic,  the  spiritual,  the  imagin- 
ative part.  It  is  analogous  to  that  which  Rossetti* s 
imaginative  mysticism  did  for  the  subjects  of  his  mys- 
tical poems. 

But  the  material  which  Turner  painted  into  his 
picture  was  rigidly  true  to  nature.  The  mountain 
lines  and  surfaces,  down  to  the  smallest  detail,  were 
true  to  existing  mountain  forms.  The  curves  of  run- 
ning and  falling  water  and  of  waves  of  the  sea ;  the 
outlines  of  clouds  in  calm  or  storm,  and  the  swirling 
and  tossing  of  their  masses,  and  their  drifts  of  flying 
foam ;  the  bending,  leap,  and  sturdy  strength  of  trees 
and  their  branches  ;  the  colour  and  the  light,  the  mist 
and  the  distance,  were  all  true,  point  by  point,  to  what 
he  had  observed  and  recorded  in  note  after  note,  of  the 
facts  of  nature.  This  was  his  realism,  and  it  could 
not  be  more  sternly  faithful  than  it  was  to  truth.  It  is 
quite  analogous  to  that  which  Rossetti' s  realism  did  in 
poetry  and  art.  Mystic  religion  in  art,  mystic  medise- 
valism  and  magical  supematuralism,  were  combined  by 
him  with  a  stem  realism,  a  determined  clinging  to  the 
actual  both  in  nature  and  human  nature.  The  aim  of 
the  Pre-Raphaelite  Brotherhood  laid  down  by  Rossetti 
himself  in  The  Germ^  is  this,  "  To  enforce  an  entire,  or 
rigid,  adherence  to  the  simplicity  of  nature,  either  in 
Art  or  Poetry."  Holman  Hunt  did  follow  that  rule 
from  the  beginning.  He  follows  it  now.  He  kept 
close,  even  in  his  largest  designs,  to  the  simplicity  and 


178  Foxir  Victorian  Poets 


1 


truth  of  nature.  What  he  mingled  with  it  was  sym 
holism  rather  than  mysticism.  But  the  symbolism  was 
contained  in  accurate  representation  of  natural  fact, 
selected  and  arranged  to  contain  the  symbols. 

Rossetti  did  not  completely  follow  the  rule  he  laid 
down.  He  was  more  complex,  more  unexpected  than 
the  rest  of  his  fellows,  and  while  he  painted  on  canvas 
or  described  in  words  his  details  with  truth  to  nature, 
he  did  not  cling  fast  to  simplicity.  He  drenched  his 
work  not  only  with  symbols  but  also  with  mystic  the- 
ology and  mediaeval  superstition.  The  atmosphere  he 
had  the  genius  to  add  to  his  poetry  and  his  painting 
was  not  in  nature,  nor  in  the  intellectual  explanation 
men  give  to  symbolism.  It  was  above  and  beyond 
both,  drawn  from  the  strange  incursions  of  his  imagin- 
ation into  unexplored  lands  of  his  own  soul,  into  the 
realm  some  call  the  subliminal  consciousness ;  drawn 
also  from  a  spiritual,  often  a  prsetematural,  world. 
This  is  true  both  of  his  poetry  and  his  painting  ;  and 
this  distinguishes  him  from  his  brothers  in  art. 

In  1848  the  Pre-Raphaelite  Brotherhood  was  formed 
to  carry  this  combined  imagination  and  realism,  sym- 
bolism and  naturalism,  into  art.  The  two  primal 
movers  in  it  were  Holman  Hunt  and  Millais,  and 
Rossetti  became,  at  many  points,  one  with  them. 
They  were  the  chiefs,  the  men  whose  power  grew  and 
lasted.  And  all  the  three,  with  the  modifications 
which  naturally  belonged  to  three  potent  individual- 


Dante  Gabriel   Rossetti  i79 

ities,  followed  in  their  early  work  their  law  with  con- 
sistent obedience ;  and,  creating  a  new  and  living 
school,  rescued  the  art  of  painting  from  the  degrada- 
tion into  which  it  had  fallen  ;*  flung  aside  its  vulgar 
conventions ;  infused  into  it  ardour,  imagination,  life, 
and  truth.  They  returned  to  Nature,  and  Nature,  well- 
ing over  into  them  from  her  perennial  fires  of  life,  day  by 
day  kindled  and  fanned  their  imagination  into  creative 
power,  so  that  all  subjects  became  new  in  their  hands. 
There  had  not  been  such  an  art-awakening  since 
Wordsworth  himself  returned  to  nature  in  his  art,  and, 
inspired  by  her,  added  to  his  realism  the  passion  and 
mystery  of  the  spiritual  world,  of  the  soul  searching  for 
beauty  through  infinitude.  In  poetry  that  was  more 
easy  of  accomplishment  than  in  painting.  In  painting 
it  had  chiefly  to  be  done  by  symbolism  ;— that  is,  the 
natural  things  in  the  painting,  while  they  were  painted 
with  exact  truth,  were  so  arranged  that  they  suggested 
the  thoughts  and  emotions  the  picture  was  intended  to 
convey.  In  the  Carpenter's  Shop  of  Millais  the  scene 
is  realised  as  it  was  to  the  smallest  detail.  All  con- 
ventions are  thrown  aside.  The  room,  open  to  the  coim- 
try,  is  a  poor  carpenter's  room ;  the  bench,  the  lathe, 
the  table,  the  tools,  the  furniture  are  painted  directly 
from  the  things  themselves.  Joseph  is  a  working  man  ; 
Mary,  with  her  ethereal  face,  Christ  and  the  Baptist, 
are  such  persons  as  might  have  been  seen  by  passers- 

*Art,  that  is,  other  than  landscape  art.     Turner  had  long 
since  done  this  work  for  landscape  art. 


i8o  Fo\ir  Victorian  Poets 

by  in  the  streets  of  Nazareth.  Their  dress  is  the  dress 
of  the  poor.  Everything,  down  to  the  shavings  on  the 
floor,  is  kept  rigidly  to  the  reality.  But  everything  is 
also  so  arranged  as  to  be  symbolic.  The  life,  the  mis- 
sion, and  the  death  of  Christ  are  shadowed  in  the  scene 
and  its  accessories.  The  very  landscape  outside,  where 
the  sheep  are  wandering  on  the  hills,  speaks  of  the  great 
Shepherd.  The  wound  which  Mary  is  binding  up  in 
the  hand  of  Christ,  the  sorrow  in  her  face,  tell  the 
story  of  the  coming  tragedy  and  redemption.  The 
very  arrangement  of  the  tools  is  symbolic.  The  mys- 
tic and  the  real  mingle. 

I  take  another  picture,  The  Scapegoat^  by  Holman 
Hunt.  The  acted  parable,  with  all  its  profound  mean- 
ing, of  the  animal  sent  into  the  wilderness  laden  with 
the  sins  of  the  people,  speaks  from  every  part  of  the 
picture,  but  is  concentrated  in  the  slow,  heavy -burdened 
Syrian  goat  who  labours  under  the  spiritual  weight 
through  the  salt  crust  of  the  Dead  Sea  shore.  This 
symbolic  element  is  the  soul  of  the  picture.  But  the 
animal  is  painted  from  nature  with  the  utmost  reality. 
Nor  is  there  a  light  or  a  shade  on  the  Dead  Sea  waters, 
nor  a  branch  on  the  shore,  nor  a  stunted  shrub,  nor 
a  cliff  or  valley  on  the  sun-baked  mountains  of 
Moab  which  was  not  painted  with  the  most  seeing 
eye  and  with  the  most  accturate  pencil,  at  the  place 
itself. 

There  is  a  little  unfinished  water-colour  of  Rossetti's 
which  used  to  hang  near  Ruskin's  bed  in  Denmark 


Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  i8i 

Hill,  and  which  was  the  first  thing  he  showed  me  on 
the  first  day  I  visited  him,  very  long  ago.  It  is  the 
Passover  in  the  Holy  Family,  Under  a  rude  porch,  sup- 
ported by  unhewn  doorposts  made  of  young  trees, 
Zacharias  is  sprinkling  the  wooden  lintel.  The  blood 
of  the  lamb  which  Joseph  had  brought  trickles  down 
one  of  the  posts  of  the  porch,  near  which  Jesus,  a  small 
boy,  is  standing,  holding  the  bowl  of  blood,  and  look- 
ing at  the  crimson  stream,  rapt  in  thought.  Elizabeth 
is  lighting  the  pyre,  and  Mary  gathering  bitter  herbs, 
and  John  fastening  the  shoes  for  departure,  which  he 
was  not  worthy  to  unloose.  The  whole  drawing,  and  the 
figures  and  faces,  are  steeped  in  symbolism.  There  is 
scarcely  a  knot  on  the  wood  of  the  rude  porch  or  a  fold 
of  the  garments  of  the  folk  which  has  not  a  meaning 
addressed  to  the  Christian  supematuralism  ;  but  the 
landscape,  the  cottage,  the  dresses,  the  details  are  as 
close  as  they  could  be  made  to  reality.  They  are  con- 
ceived and  drawn  as  they  would  be  at  the  time  in  the 
dwelling  of  a  poor  family  on  the  slopes  of  Nazareth. 
I  might  illustrate  the  same  mingling  of  the  ideal  and 
the  real,  through  a  detailed  symbolism,  from  Rossetti 's 
impassioned  picture  of  the  Virgin  in  the  house  of  St. 
John  on  the  night  of  Good  Friday,  but  I  refer  my 
readers,  since  the  picture  is  to  be  seen,  to  The  Girlhood 
of  Mary.  The  girl,  the  bed,  the  room,  the  flower,  the 
embroidery,  the  walls,  every  detail,  are  painted  with 
the  utmost  reality  direct  from  nature,  but  Rossetti  has 
recorded  their  symbolism — 


1 82  Foxir  Victorian  Poets 

— On  that  cloth  of  red 
I*  the  centre  is  the  Tripoint :  perfect  each, 
Kxcept  the  second  of  its  points,  to  teach 
That  Christ  is  not  yet  born.     The  books — whose  head 
Is  golden  charity,  as  Paul  hath  said — 
Those  virtues  are  wherein  the  soul  is  rich  : 
Therefore  on  them  the  lily  standeth,  which 
Is  Innocence,  being  interpreted. 
The  seven-thorn'd  briar,  and  the  palm  seven-leaved 
Are  her  great  sorrow  and  her  great  reward. 

It  was  often  his  way  to  embody  not  only  in  painting, 
but  also  in  poetry,  this  mysticism  and  realism.  At 
the  beginning  of  his  poetic  life  he  mixed  them  in 
religious  poems  on  the  Gospel  history ;  and  the  most 
relevant  example  of  this  is  the  beautiful  poem  entitled 
Ave,  which  is  really  three  pictures  translated  into  verse. 
Only  the  three  subjects,  being  here  conceived  and 
worked  by  him  as  a  poet,  and  not  as  a  painter,  are 
radically  different  in  the  way  the  ideas  and  feelings 
are  represented,  from  any  pictured  representation  of 
them.  The  poem  supports,  I  think,  my  statement, 
but  whether  it  does  or  not,  it  ought  to  be  read  for  the 
sake  of  its  beauty. 

The  realism  in  that  poem  is  less  than  the  mystic 
supematuralism,  but  it  is  clearly  there.  Nor  was  his 
realistic  and  symbolic  treatment  of  the  Gospel  story 
ever  quite  given  up.  It  arose  in  later  years  in  another 
form,  when  the  realism  was  mixed  with  the  supematur- 
alism, not  of  the  Gospel  story,  but  of  the  mediaeval 
Church.  The  elaborate  symbolism  of  the  mediaeval 
religion  and  theology  attracted  him  as  strongly  as 


Dante  Gabriel   Rossetti  183 

they  did  Dante.  The  beauty  which  gathered  round 
the  conceptions  of  Heaven  and  of  its  cosmogony,  such 
conceptions  as  the  Earthly  Paradise  of  Dante  which 
was  all  but  Heaven,  its  mystic  indwellers,  and  the 
Divine  Pageant  which  accompanied  the  chariot  of  the 
Church,  stirred  Rossetti' s  imagination  with  a  nameless 
joy.  The  mystic  Rose  of  the  Saints  in  the  Empyrean, 
the  angelic  choirs  of  the  Nine  Spheres,  adoring,  and 
clothed  with  unutterable  loveliness  of  form  and  colour ; 
the  companies  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  Fathers,  the 
Virgin  Saints  and  Martyrs  who  walked  together  in 
the  green  fields  and  beside  the  waters  of  Paradise,  the 
serene  beauty  of  their  ideal  shapes,  each  charged  with 
the  thought  and  emotion  of  centuries — these,  and  a 
hundred  more  imaginations,  filled  his  soul  with  a 
heavenly  pleasure  and  inspired  his  thought.  His 
imagination  walked  in  them  like  a  queen  singing  to 
herself  in  a  walled  and  secret  garden.  The  Blessed 
Damozel  is  the  best  outcome  of  these  attractions.  It  is 
mystic"^roughout.  Yet  it  clings,  as  the  mediaeval 
painters  and  poets  did,  to  realism.  It  is  as  clear  as 
things  are  in  Dante.  The  rampart  of  Heaven,  the  gold 
bar  over  the  sheer  depth  of  Space  are  described  with 
close  reference  to  place  and  appearance.  The  view  of 
all  the  worlds  below  is  given,  even  to  the  look,  from 
Heaven's  unfathomable  height,  of  the  earth  and  moon. 
The  shrine  of  God  Himself,  the  living,  mystic  tree  of 
the  Spirit,  the  groves  where  the  I^ady  Mary  walks 
with  her  ^ve  handmaidens,  and  how  they  sit  garlanded 


184  Fovir  "Victorian  Poets 

and  weaving  into  the  white  robes  the  golden  thread  for 
the  dead,  now  new-bom,  the  angels  in  their  level 
flight — are  made  as  visible  to  our  eyes  as  if  they  were 
actually  seen.  They  are  close  to  reality,  even  down  to 
the  warmth  of  the  golden  parapet  on  which  her  bosom 
leaned,  and  the  passion  with  which 

she  cast  her  arms  along 
The  golden  barriers. 
And  laid  her  face  between  her  hands 
And  wept. 

A  last  touch  of  this  strong  realism  ends  the  poem — 
"  I  heard  her  tears." 

If  any  poem  of  Rossetti's  is  known,  that  is  known. 
It  is  a  lovely  thing,  as  exquisite  in  tenderness  and 
sublimated  thought  as  it  is  in  form  and  finish.  He 
was  only  twenty  when  he  wrote  it,  and  his  art  is  as 
true  and  fine  in  it  as  in  the  best  of  the  later  sonnets,  so 
swiftly  does  genius  grow  to  its  full  height.  The  sub- 
ject is  noble,  and  appeals  to  universal  feeling.  No  one 
who  has  loved  and  lost,  and  waits  here  below,  or  there 
above,  but  must  have  cherished  its  main  thought  and 
felt  its  main  emotion.  The  ornament  is  beautiful,  and 
is  charged  with  human  feeling.  It  is  not  the  work  of 
fancy  but  of  imagination  piercing  with  vital  power  into 
the  heart  of  the  subject,  and  radiating  new  thought, 
new  feeling  through  every  verse,  even  every  line. 

This  kind  of  mediaevalism,  of  which  there  are  so  few 
examples  in  the  earlier  poems  and  many  in  the  paint- 
ing, continued  to  appear  at  intervals  in  his  poetry.     It 


Dante  Oabriel  Rossetti  185 

traverses  A  Last  Confession^  that  remarkable  piece  of 
Italian  modernism  and  fierce  reality.  It  breaks  out 
fully  in  the  dream  the  murderer  tells  the  priest : 

I  know  last  night 
I  dreamed  I  saw  into  the  garden  of  God, 
Where  women  walked  whose  painted  images 
I  've  seen  with  candles  round  them  in  the  church. 
They  bent  this  way  and  that,  one  to  another, 
Playing:  and  over  the  long  golden  hair 
Of  each  there  floated  like  a  ring  of  fire 

Which  when  she  stooped  stooped  with  her,  and  when  she  rose 
Rose  with  her.     Then  a  breeze  flew  in  among  them, 
As  if  a  window  had  been  opened  in  heaven 
For  God  to  give  His  blessing  from,  before 
This  world  of  ours  should  set ;  (for  in  my  dream 
I  thought  our  world  was  setting,  and  the  sun 
Flared,  a  spent  taper  ; )  and  beneath  that  gust 
The  rings  of  light  quivered  like  forest  leaves. 
Then  all  the  blessed  maidens  who  were  there 
Stood  up  together,  as  it  were  a  voice 
That  called  them  ;  and  they  threw  their  tresses  back, 
And  smote  their  palms,  and  all  laughed  up  at  once, 
For  the  strong  heavenly  joy  they  had  in  them 
To  hear  God  bless  the  world.  y  *•  ' 

That  is  a  new  imagination,  built  out  of  the  concep- 
tion of  the  mediaeval  heaven  such  as  Fra  Angelico 
took  up  from  the  middle  age  and  painted,  where  the 
saints  and  martyrs  and  angels  dance  on  the  flowery 
meadows  in  a  golden  air ;  but  this  is  touched  not  only 
with  the  rude,  peasant  nature  of  the  dreamer,  but  with 
modern  thought  expressed  with  modern  turns  of  words. 
And  the  laughter  of  the  maidens  is  not  of  the  medi- 
aeval  foundation.     Dante  was  too  serious  for  that. 


_i86  Foxir   Victorian  Poets 

Beatrice  never  laughs,  but    smiles ;    and  her  smile 
illumines  heaven. 

Then  all  through  the  Staff  and  Scrip — a  story- 
borrowed  from  the  Gesta  Romanorum — through  The 
World's  Worth,  where  Father  Hilary  climbs  the  steep- 
coiled  stair  of  the  church  among  the  bells  and  hears 
the  mass  below,  and  finds  his  world  in  God  alone — a 
beautiftil  short  poem — the  religious  mediaeval  atmos- 
phere is  fully  realised.  But  it  is  not  only  the  religious 
atmosphere.  A  hundred  touches  in  these  poems  bring 
the  churches  of  the  middle  ages,  the  castles,  moats,  the 
gardens,  the  wild  country  round  the  solitary  fortresses, 
the  superstitions,  the  belief  in  magic  and  in  evil  spirits, 
the  women,  the  lovers,  the  battles,  the  music,  before 
the  eyes  of  the  mind.  Nor  is  that  neglected  which  is 
so  vivid  in  mediaeval  Romance  :  the  intense  colour  and 
fantasy  in  design,  of  glass  and  tapestry  and  raiment  ; 
the  jewelled  robes  and  shoes  and  belts;  the  love  of 
gorgeous  and  heraldic  dress  and  armour.  I  quote  a 
few  verses  from  The  Bride's  Prelude,  which  flame  and 
glitter  while  we  read  : 

Within  the  window's  heaped  recess 

The  light  was  counterchanged 
In  blent  reflexes  manifold 
From  perfume-caskets  of  wrought  gold 
And  gems  the  bride's  hair  could  not  hold 

All  thrust  together  :  and  with  these 

A  slim-curved  lute,  which  now. 
At  Amelotte's  sudden  passing  there, 
Was  swept  in  some  wise  unaware. 
And  shook  to  music  the  close  air. 


Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  187 

Against  the  haloed  lattice-panes 

The  bridesmaid  sunned  her  breast ; 
Then  to  the  glass  turned  tall  and  free, 
And  braced  and  shifted  daintily 
Her  loin-belt  through  her  cote-hardie. 

The  belt  was  silver,  and  the  clasp 

Of  lozenged  arm-bearings ; 
A  world  of  mirrored  tints  minute 
The  rippling  sunshine  wrought  into  't, 
That  flushed  her  hand  and  warmed  her  foot. 

At  least  an  hour  had  Aloyse, — 

Her  jewels  in  her  hair, — 
Her  white  gown,  as  became  a  bride. 
Quartered  in  silver  at  each  side, — 

Sat  thus  aloof,  as  if  to  hide. 

* 

Over  her  bosom,  that  lay  still, 
The  vest  was  rich  in  grain. 
With  close  pearls  wholly  overset : 
Around  her  throat  the  fastenings  met 
Of  chevesayle  and  mantelet. 

It  is  not  as  good  as  it  might  be,  but  it  illustrates 
this  element  of  mediaevalism  in  his  poetry,  and  it  is 
a  painter's  poetry.  The  room,  the  figures,  the  dresses, 
the  colour,  make  up  a  picture ;  and  they  suggest  an- 
other element  in  Rossetti' s  poetry  on  which  I  dwell  for 
a  moment — his  attempt  to  represent  in  poetry  what  he 
had  made  in  painting.  He  wrote  a  number  of  sonnets 
on  his  own  pictures.  I  do  not  think  they  are  success- 
ful. I  do  not  believe  in  the  representation  through  a 
second  art-vehicle  of  that  which  has  been  previously 
represented  in  another.  One  of  the  representations  is 
not  only  always  weaker  than  the  other,  but  also  lowers 


1 88  Fo\ir  Victorian  Poets 

the  imaginative  level  of  the  other;  and  where  the 
attempt  is  deliberately  made  to  make  a  picture  into  a 
poem,  or  a  poem  into  a  picture,  the  poem  or  the  picture 
is  not  as  freshly  shaped  as  it  ought  to  be.  The  new 
vehicle  does  not  secure  originality ;  on  the  contrary, 
the  new  thing  cannot  help  taking  something  of  the 
old,  and  that  something,  when  it  has  been  felt  through 
painting  and  realised  in  painting,  does  not  fit  in  with 
that  which  ought  to  be  felt  through  poetry  and  realised 
in  poetry.  The  same  may  be  said  when  the  poem  has 
preceded  the  picture.  Rossetti's  sonnets  on  his  pict- 
ures are  mere  translations  of  pictures  into  words,  and 
I  cannot  read  them  with  patience. 

But  this  does  not  prevent  the  interest  one  has  when 
into  poetry,  the  subject  of  which  has  not  yet  been 
painted,  the  painter  intrudes,  and  visualises  in  words, 
that  which  he  sees  in  his  mind  as  a  picture.  This  is 
quite  different  from  making  a  poem  out  of  a  finished 
picture.  This  is  the  spirit  and  eye  of  a  painter  giving 
to  the  poem  an  additional  and  subordinate  excellence, 
which  does  not  interfere  with  the  distinctive  poetic 
conception  of  the  subject.  And  Rossetti,  in  the  poems 
where  he  uses  the  powers  of  the  painter  to  enhance 
his  poetic  work,  has  done  that  which  is  unique  in 
English  poetry.  There  has  been  no  other  poet  in 
England  who  was  also  a  painter  of  genius,  and  who 
really  could  use  the  painter's  gifts  to  adorn  therewith 
the  poet's  work. 

And  now  I  return  to  my  main  subject.     One  of  the 


Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  189 

tendencies  of  a  mystic  supematuralism  in  religion  is, 
in  certain  moods  of  a  poet,  to  enter  into  and  represent 
a  magic  supematuralism,  such,  as  over  wide  classes  of 
men  in  ignorant  times,  ends  in  the  belief  in  demons, 
in  spirits  who  inhabit  matter,  in  black  magic,  in 
witches  and  gramarye.  A  poet  like  Rossetti  could 
scarcely  help  feeling  sympathy  with  this  common  ten- 
dency in  human  nature.  Moreover,  his  own  nature 
had  a  certain  pleasure  in  playing  with  these  things  and 
living  in  their  world.  It  was  in  the  family.  Even  Chris- 
tina, in  Goblin  Market^  shows  this  tendency,  though 
the  aim  of  the  poem  takes  it  out  of  the  realm  of  super- 
stition. In  her  brother's  poetry,  Sister  Helen  is  the 
finest  example  of  this  kind  of  work.  Helen  has  been 
betrayed  by  her  lover,  who  takes  to  himself  a  wife. 
High  on  her  tower  she  has  made  a  pile  of  wood,  and 
she  melts  a  waxen  man  before  its  heat,  and,  as  the  wax 
melts,  Keith  of  Bwem's  flesh  and  blood  melt  away  in 
fervent  heat.  Her  little  brother  watches  in  the  moon- 
light from  the  balcony  of  the  tower,  and  the  two 
brothers  of  the  sick  man,  and  then  his  father,  ride  for 
life  and  death  to  the  foot  of  the  tower  and  cry  to  the 
boy  to  speak  to  Helen,  "  that  she  take  away  the  curse, 
and  if  she  will  not  save  the  body  to  save  the  soul." 
But  she  clings  to  her  revenge,  and  slays  her  own  soul 
with  his.  Nothing  can  be  more  vivid  than  the  realisa- 
tion of  this,  and  it  is  all  the  more  vivid,  through  con- 
trast, because  it  is  carried  on  by  the  conversation  of 
the  innocent  child  with  the  guilty  woman.   The  tower. 


igo  Four  "Victorian  Poets 

the  burning  pyre,  the  melting  image,  the  moonlight 
on  the  moors  and  the  road,  the  wild  storm,  the  gallop- 
ing horses,  the  white  mane  and  plume  and  the  grey 
hair  of  the  great  Baron,  the  pitiful  cry  of  their  agony, 
the  white  soul  of  Bwern,  dead  at  last,  that  flits 
through  the  forest,  lost  as  Helen's  soul  is  lost,  are 
seen  with  such  reality  that  we  seem  to  stand  on  the 
balcony  and  look  into  the  room,  and  over  the  moor- 
land road.  Yet  the  whole  thing  is  in  an  unreal  world. 
This  is  the  mixture  of  the  earthly  and  unearthly, 
of  the  visible  fact  with  an  invisible  cause,  of  which 
Rossetti  was  such  a  master.  It  may  be  said  that  the 
matter  of  the  poem  is  out  of  human  nature.  But  the 
matter  of  the  poem  was  fully  believed  in  the  time  of 
which  he  writes.  And  moreover,  so  enduring  are 
these  superstitions,  there  are  those  who  believe  it  still. 
In  my  own  experience  I  have  come  across  it  twice. 
I  used  to  visit,  when  I  was  a  curate  in  Kensington,  a 
country  girl  from  Devonshire  who  was  dying  of  con- 
sumption. She  suffered  sorely  from  stabbing  pain. 
She  implored  me  to  go  down  to  Devonshire  and  to 
have  arrested  another  girl  there  who  had  made  a 
waxen  image  of  her,  and  who  every  night  pierced  its 
breast  with  long  pins  again  and  again.  This  was  the 
cause  of  her  illness,  and  it  was  the  girl's  vengeance 
on  her  because  she  had  taken  her  lover  away.  Noth- 
ing would  persuade  her  that  her  belief  was  untrue. 
She  died  believing  it.  Some  years  afterwards  two 
friends  of  mine  told  me  the  following  story.    They 


Dante  Gabriel   Rossetti  191 

were  dining  alone  with  a  woman  whose  husband  had 
been  seduced  from  her  by  another  woman.  After 
dinner,  when  they  were  gathered  around  the  fire,  the 
woman  rose  with  a  dreadful  look,  went  to  a  cupboard, 
took  out  of  it  a  wax  figure  of  her  betrayer,  placed  it 
inside  the  fender,  and  bent  over  it,  crying  fiercely — 
**  Burn,  you  white  Witch,  bum."  The  subject  is  then 
quite  modem  enough  to  give  it  an  additional  flavour. 
Nor  is  the  burning  centre  of  the  poem,  the  hungry 
passion  of  vengeance  in  it,  of  which  all  the  rest  is  but 
the  shell — the  simple,  soHtary  intensity  of  which  never 
leaves  us  for  a  moment — less  modern,  less  capable  of 
being  felt  now  than  it  was  in  the  past.  Set,  unrelent- 
ing revenge,  the  thirst  of  which  is  never  slaked,  exists 
among  us  now,  and  it  would  use  the  measures  Helen 
uses,  if  it  could.  A  soul  possessed  by  it  needs  to  be 
almost  re-made ;  and  it  is  well  to  have  its  deepset 
passion  realised  to  the  full  here,  so  that,  seeing  it  as  it 
is,  we  may  leam  how  to  expel  it  from  the  soul.  That 
lesson  is  not  intended  by  the  poet,  but  it  follows.  It  is, 
like  all  the  teaching  of  the  arts,  indirect,  and  it  is  the 
more  powerful  for  that. 

I  have  only  one  thing  more  to  say  of  the  poem.  It 
may  be  alleged  that  the  subject-matter  is  too  terrible 
for  art.  But  the  dreadful  in  passion,  or  guilt,  or  agony 
is  not  unfit  for  art  if  the  impression  left  at  the  end  is 
one  of  pity  or  reverance  for  human  nature,  such  an 
impression  as  is  left  by  the  CEdipus  of  Sophocles  or  the 
Othello  of  Shakespeare.     This  saves  the  situation,  and 


192  Foxir  Victorian  Poets 

the  soul  of  the  audience  is  softened,  and  purified  from 
the  evil  extremes  of  the  passions  represented.  The 
play  or  the  tale  which  leaves  an  opposite  impression  of 
human  nature,  which  makes  us  mock,  despise,  or 
loathe  it — that^  no  matter  how  clever  it  may  be,  is  not 
a  work  of  art,  but  of  literary  science.  It  is  interesting 
as  science,  it  is  detestable  as  art.  Here  there  is  nothing 
left  but  pity :  pity  all  round,  pity  for  the  fates  of 
human  passion,  pity  for  the  guilty,  pity  for  the  father, 
for  the  bride,  pity  for  the  souls  who  are  lost,  infinite 
sorrow  for  human  nature  wrenched  awry  from  noble- 
ness. It  seems  as  if  pity  for  Helen  were  impossible, 
but  it  is  there. 

We  may  foUow  this  element  of  magic  supernatural- 
ism  through  the  thrice-divided  poem  of  Rose  Mary, 
especially  in  its  third  part.  It  is  full  of  Rossetti's  sug- 
gestiveness  of  the  lower  supernatural,  of  his  half-finished 
beings  of  evil,  who,  when  men  have  forced  their  way 
by  magic  beyond  the  limits  of  the  natural,  indulge, 
while  they  seem  to  serve,  a  set  purpose  to  betray  and 
injure  men.  They  live  within  certain  cruel  powers  of 
nature  as  in  their  natural  home,  and  direct  these  harm- 
ful powers  against  us.  To  be  their  seeming  master  is 
to  be  their  slave.  To  trust  them  means  their  betrayal 
of  our  trust.  It  was  so  with  Macbeth,  and  Rose  Mary 
and  her  mother  are  also  deceived.  But,  at  the  end, 
the  poem  maintains  the  lordship  of  the  soul  over  these 
evil  powers.  Rose  Mary  dies  to  conquer  them,  and  she 
evercomes  them  in  death. 


Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  193 

The  poetry  attains  a  higher  imaginative  range  than 
elsewhere  in  this  class  of  Rossetti's  poems.  It  brings 
the  spirit  of  the  lower  supernatural  into  the  souls  of  the 
mother  and  the  girl,  makes  their  speech  and  passions 
unearthly,  and  drenches  all  the  natural  scenery  with  a 
mist  of  wizardry.  Nay,  in  the  very  words  and  phrases 
of  the  poem  there  is  such  a  mingling  of  spirit  and 
matter,  of  the  earth  and  heaven,  and  of  the  spiritual 
and  supernatural  underneath  them,  that  one  cannot  tell 
where  thought  begins  or  ends.  All  things  are  in  a 
whirl,  yet  the  artistic  result  is  clear. 

At  the  same  time  in  which  he  made  these  incursions 
into  the  mystic,  mediaeval,  magic-haunted  realms,  he 
could,  when  he  pleased,  and  it  proves  the  range  and 
power  of  his  genius,  enter,  and  with  equal  power,  into, 
the  problem  and  sorrowful  fates  of  our  real  life.  I 
have  already  touched  on  his  modernism,  but  I  have 
only  mentioned  the  poem  entitled /enny.  No  one  can 
mistake  the  reality  of  its  description,  the  rigid  adher- 
ence to  the  truth  of  the  matter,  the  utterly  un-mystic 
treatment  of  the  subject — and  this  from  a  man  who 
shortly  before  was  wandering  in  mediaevalisms  and  in 
dim  superstitions.  That  is  worth  our  noting.  Still 
more  notable  is  Rossetti's  imaginative  sympathy  and 
insight  into  the  mind  of  the  careless  girl ;  the  finding, 
below  her  light  surface,  of  her  soul ;  the  thought  of 
her  fate,  of  the  winter  of  her  life's  year ;  the  wonder 
and  sorrow  of  it  all ;  the  horror  it  is  to  humanity  ;  the 
contrast  of  her  life  with  that  of  her  innocent  sisters 
13 


194  Four  Victorian  Poets 

which  makes  a  goblin  of  the  sun ;  the  desperate  prob- 
lem of  this  thing  having  been  from  the  beginning  even 
until  now.  There  is  no  poem  which  should  make  us 
think  more  wisely,  more  sternly,  more  sincerely  of 
what  has  been,  and  is,  and  of  what  should  be.  If  Ros- 
setti  had  written  nothing  else,  he  did  well  in  writing  this. 
Nothing  is  shirked,  no  false  veil  is  thrown  over  the 
truth.  It  is  stern  realism,  and  yet,  as  art  demands,  the 
pity  of  it,  the  sense  of  sorrow  for  the  fates  of  men,  is 
supreme. 

But  these  modem  things  were  parentheses  in  the 
general  story  of  his  poetry.  So  far  as  narrative  poetry 
is  concerned  it  had  chiefly  to  do  with  the  past.  As  a 
painter,  he  could  not  paint  a  continuous  story,  for  a 
picture  treats  only  a  moment.  As  a  poet,  he  wished  to 
tell,  and  out  of  the  past,  long  stories  which  seized  on 
his  fancy.  He  projected  many  such,  but  he  realised 
very  few.  The  form  in  which  he  treated  these  resem- 
bled the  form  of  the  ballad,  a  difficult  form  for  us 
modems  to  use  who  have  lost  naivete  which  Rossetti 
never  had,  and  simplicity  which  was  also  far  away 
from  him.  Yet  he  had  always  loved  the  ballads  ;  they 
were  one  of  his  earliest  affections,  and  he  resolved  to 
try  and  use  their  form.  He  had  begun  with  the  Staff 
and  Scrip,  which,  save  for  a  few  verses,  was  not  a  suc- 
cess. Then  he  wrote  Stratton  Water  and  afterwards 
The  King's  Tragedy  and  The  White  Skip.  They  are  all 
too  long  for  excellence  in  this  kind  of  poetry,  and  they 
are  long  by  the  continual  intrusion  of  unnecessary 


Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  195 

detail — detail  good  in  itself,  but  which  overloads  the 
building.  These  ballads  are  like  those  later  churches 
which  are  so  crowded  all  over  with  sculptures  in  the 
wrong  places  that  the  mind  is  drawn  away  from  the  plan 
of  the  whole.  Stratton  Water  is  nearest  to  the  bal- 
lad, but  the  force  and  intensity  of  the  subject  is 
weakened  by  varied  descriptions  of  the  same  things 
over  and  over  again.  The  King's  Tragedy^  in  itself  a 
fine  thing,  is  a  long  story,  not  a  ballad,  and  the  ballad 
metre  in  which  it  is  written  only  makes  its  difference 
from  a  true  ballad  the  more  remarkable.  Kven  in  the 
description  of  the  meeting  of  the  King  and  the  woman- 
seer,  to  write  which  would  please  his  mystical  temper, 
much  detail  is  introduced  which  is  not  quite  irrelevant, 
but  which  enfeebles  the  scene.  Then,  many  verses 
say  what  the  true  ballad  would  have  said  in  one,  and 
left  a  greater  weirdness  on  the  mind.  The  White  Ship 
has  been  highly  praised.  It  is  striking  in  parts,  but  I 
should  challenge  its  success.  On  the  whole,  Rossetti 
was  not  good  at  long  narrative. 

Moments  of  passion,  hours  in  which  a  fate  reaches  its 
climax,  intense  passages  of  psychological  struggle,  a 
night's  thinking  all  in  a  breath,  as  in  Jenny ^  on  some 
problem  which  lies  as  it  were  incarnate  before  him  ; 
the  concentration  into  an  hour's  emotions  of  the  love 
of  years,  as  in  The  Portrait — these  were  the  realms  in 
which  his  imagination  and  his  white-hot  power  reached 
their  successes  ;  and  his  constant  use  of  the  sonnet  in 
which   many  thoughts  and  aspects   of  a  matter  are 


196  Four  "Victorian  Poets 

fused  into  one  amalgam,  contains  not  only  a  proof  of 
this,  but  also  a  suggestion  that  he  would  not  reach  ex- 
cellence in  the  ballad  or  in  the  narrative  poem.  If  his 
life  had  depended  on  it,  he  could  not  have  written  a 
single  one  of  the  stories  in  The  Earthly  Paradise.  He 
and  Morris  were  in  this  matter  at  opposite  poles. 

In  all  these  different  directions,  and  over  many 
classes  of  subjects,  Rossetti  displayed  his  originating 
power.  He  was  incapable  of  imitation  ;  what  he  did 
arose  clean  and  fresh  out  of  his  imagination.  He  made 
new  paths  for  poetry  as  he  did  for  painting,  and  along 
the  new  paths  he  planted  trees  and  flowers  unknown 
before.  The  Last  Confession  has,  it  is  true,  a  faint 
odour  of  Browning,  and  Browning  is  the  only  poet 
whom  we  momentarily  touch  in  his  work.  Yet,  it  is 
only  with  Browning's  vivid  realism  that  we  can  com- 
pare the  realism  of  Rossetti.  And  the  comparison 
slips  away  from  our  grasp.  For  Rossetti 's  realism  is 
so  interpenetrated  with  mystic  elements  that  it  is  alto- 
gether severed  from  Browning's. 

These  original  ways  in  poetry  and  original  species  of 
poetry  are  each  represented  by  only  a  few  examples 
and  it  is  a  great  pity  he  did  not  give  us  more.  But 
then,  his  creative  energy  was  split  into  two  directions, 
not  concentrated  on  one.  He  made  his  imagination 
work  in  two  arts,  and  he  played  at  neither.  When  he 
wrote  poetry,  he  gave  his  whole  soul  to  it ;  when  he 
painted,  he  did  the  same ;  and  he  gave  an  equality  of 
energy  to  both.     There  have  been  other  painters  who 


Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  197 

wrote  poetry,  but  it  was  for  the  amusement  of  idle  hours ; 
but  Rossetti  was  as  earnest  a  poet  as  he  was  a  painter. 
He  reached  an  equal  originality,  and  it  may  be  an  equal 
excellence,  in  both  arts,  and  I  do  not  know  of  another 
instance  of  this.  And  this  curious  two-foldness  in  the 
man — which  must  have  strangely  confused  the  single- 
ness of  his  consciousness,  doubling  himself  continually 
to  himself,  so  that  his  weird  picture  of  **  How  we  met 
ourselves '  *  may  have  represented  an  actual  psycholog- 
ical experience — accounts  for  the  small  number  of 
examples  he  gives  us  of  the  different  original  paths  he 
opened  out  for  poetry.  Having  to  live  two  lives  in 
one,  having  to  endue  another  personality  whenever  he 
changed  from  the  painter  to  the  poet  or  from  the  poet 
to  the  painter,  he  had  not  time  to  make  many  examples 
of  the  new  species  he  had  shaped  in  both  his  arts.  It 
is  astonishing  how  distinct  he  kept  these  two  personal- 
ities, and  how  distinct  was  the  work  of  each.  I  have 
said  that  he  used  some  of  the  painter's  gifts  to  enhance 
the  work  of  the  poet,  and  that  is  true.  But  they  were 
sparingly  used,  and  were  strictly  subordinated  to  the 
poetic  conception  and  its  form.  The  poems  are  those 
of  a  poet,  not  of  a  painter,  except  those  sonnets  to  his 
own  pictures,  of  which  I  take  no  count  as  poems.  The 
fact  is  that  in  all  Rossetti 's  high  poetic  work,  even  in 
The  Portrait  where  one  might  look  for  the  painter's 
way,  there  is  nothing  which  recalls  a  painter's  method. 
He  conceives  the  subject,  composes  it,  ornaments  it, 
sends  his  passion  through  it,  fuses  its  elements  together 


198  KoiJir  Victorian  Poets 

by  imagination,  as  a  poet  would,  not  as  a  painter. 
To  anyone  who  believes  in  the  manifoldedness  of  what 
I  may  call  secondary  personalities  under  one  will,  this 
example  of  it  in  Rossetti  is  full  of  interest.  To  illus- 
trate this,  I  may  instance  The  Portrait,  one  of  the  most 
beautiful  of  his  poems.  It  tells  how  in  old  time  he 
painted  the  woman  he  loved,  and  who  is  now  dead. 
But  though  he  speaks  of  painting,  the  poet,  not  the 
painter,  is  supreme  in  the  poem.  There  is  not  a  line  of 
it  which  is  conceived  or  felt  out  of  a  painter's  imagina- 
tion. I  quote  a  few  verses  of  it,  not  only  to  illustrate 
how  far  apart  it  is  from  the  art  of  painting,  but  also 
because  it  throws  light  upon  those  elements  in  his 
poetry  of  which  I  have  already  written.  His  mysticism 
is  full-fledged  in  it,  and  also  his  psychology.  That 
superstitious  element  also  into  which  mysticism  often 
drifts  is  not  absent : 

In  painting  her  I  shrined  her  face 
'Mid  mystic  trees,  where  light  falls  in 
Hardly  at  all ;  a  covert  place 
Where  you  might  think  to  find. a  din 
Of  doubtful  talk,  and  a  live  flame 
Wandering,  and  many  a  shape  whose  name 
Not  itself  knoweth,  and  old  dew, 
And  your  own  footsteps  meeting  you, 
And  all  things  going  as  they  came. 

A  haunted  place !  Wraiths  of  the  intruders  who 
break  into  it,  half  souls  that  do  not  know  their  names, 
footfalls  that  are  one's  own  yet  not  one's  own,  a  din  of 
doubtful  voices,  wandering  flames,  old  dew — a  wonder- 


Dante  Oabriel  Rossetti  199 

ful  phrase — and  that  incomprehensible  drift  of  things 
in  a  world  devoid  of  reason  or  of  cause,  all  things 
going  as  they  came, — are  all  mingled  up  with  the 
bitter  sorrow  of  love. 

O  heart  that  never  beats  nor  heaves, 
In  that  one  darkness  lying  still, 
What  now  to  thee  my  love's  great  will 

Or  the  fine  web  the  sunshine  weaves  ? 

At  the  end  steals  in  the  ancient  love  of  mediaeval- 
ism — the  mediaeval  Heaven  of  The  Blessed  Damozel  and 
the  Palestine  of  the  Crusades  : 

Even  so,  where  Heaven  holds  breath  and  hears 
The  beating  heart  of  Love's  own  breast, — 

Where  round  the  secret  of  all  spheres 
All  angels  lay  their  wings  to  rest, — 

How  shall  my  soul  stand  wrapt  and  awed. 

When,  by  the  new  birth  borne  abroad 

Throughout  the  music  of  the  suns. 

It  enters  in  her  soul  at  once 

And  knows  the  silence  there  for  God ! 

Here,  with  her  face  doth  memory  sit 
Meanwhile,  and  wait  the  day's  decline. 

Till  other  eyes  shall  look  from  it, 

Eyes  of  the  spirit's  Palestine, 

Even  then  the  old  gaze  tenderer : 

While  hopes  and  aims  long  lost  with  her 
Stand  round  her  image  side  by  side. 
Like  tombs  of  pilgrims  that  have  died 

About  the  Holy  Sepulchre. 

It  remains  in  concluding  this  essay,  to  say  a  few 
words  on  Rossetti's  translations,  and  on  his  relation  to 
Nature-poetry.     As  to  the  translations,  he  was  a  fine 


200  Fcur  "Victorian  Poets 

Italian  scholar,  not  from  the  outside,  but  the  inside. 
Italian  might  be  said  to  be  his  native  tongue.  English 
also  might  be  said  to  be  his  native  tongue.  It  is  plain 
from  his  work  in  poetry  and  prose  that  he  was  a  master 
of  the  intimacies  of  English.  When  we  add  to  those 
two  masterhoods  that  from  his  youth  he  had  studied, 
under  his  father  and  in  his  home,  Dante  and  the  circle 
of  poets  who  preceded  and  followed  him  ;  and,  more- 
over, that  one-half  of  his  mind  was  in  close  harmony 
with  the  thoughts,  feelings,  manners,  and  especially 
with  the  theology  and  love-theories  of  the  end  of  the 
thirteenth  and  beginning  of  the  fourteenth  century,  we 
can  scarcely  conceive  any  one  better  fitted  to  translate 
the  Vita  Nuova  and  the  rest  of  the  poetic  work  of  that 
time.  Moreover,  Rossetti  was  a  true  poet,  and  it  takes 
a  poet  to  translate  a  poet ;  and,  through  imagination 
impassioned  by  what  it  reads,  to  feel  into  the  heart  of 
what  the  poet  meant  whom  he  translates ;  and  then, 
transferring  what  he  has  felt  into  another  tongue,  to 
seize  the  phrase,  the  words,  which  rightly  represent, 
and  will  awaken,  a  similar  emotion  in  the  English 
reader  to  that  which  the  Italian  reader,  such  as  Giotto, 
felt  of  old.  All  this  Rossetti  has  done  as  it  was  never 
done  before  in  England. 

As  to  his  Nature-poetry,  Rossetti  felt  deeply  the 
beauty  and  the  terror  of  the  world  of  nature,  but  he 
felt,  as  a  poet,  the  beautiful  and  terrible  landscape  of 
the  soul,  in  its  questioning,  its  experience,  and  its 
passions,  above  all,  in  the  passion  of  love,  a  hundred- 


Dante  Gabriel   Rossetti  201 

fold  more  deeply; — and  this,  to  such  an  extent,  that 
nature  is,  I  may  say,  never  described  for  her  own  sake, 
for  love  of  her  alone.  She  lives  in  his  poetry  only  as 
illustration  of  the  action  and  feeling  of  the  heart  of 
man.  It  is  curious  that  in  all  the  hundred  and  one 
sonnets  of  The  House  of  Life^  and  in  the  omer  scattered 
sonnets,  there  is  scarcely  one  in  which  nature  is  the 
main  subject ;  and  there  are  very  few  where  the  natural 
description  extends  over  a  third  of  the  sonnet.  Where 
it  does,  it  is  to  lead  up  to  the  record  of  some  experience 
of  the  inner  life,  or  to  enhance  some  phase  of  love.  It 
is  much  the  same  in  the  other  poems.  The  most  accu- 
rate description  of  nature  in  them  is  that  of  the  birds, 
especially  of  the  starlings,  coming  home  at  evening,  in 
Sunset  WingSy  but  it  is  only  made  in  order  to  image 
the  hours  of  Hope,  in  flight  towards  farewell.  There 
is,  however,  in  a  single  sonnet,  entitled  Springs  a  full 
picture  of  early  spring  in  a  pastoral  country  which 
shows  how  well,  had  he  chosen,  he  could  have  written 
on  natural  scenery.  It  was  not  only  spring  that  ap- 
pealed to  him.  He  loved  the  four  seasons  of  the  year, 
but  he  loved  them  most  as  images  of  the  course  of 
human  love  and  human  life.  All  his  happy,  immanent 
appreciations,  in  one  or  two  lines,  of  the  weather,  the 
flowers,  the  life,  the  inner  spirit  of  the  seasons,  drift 
into  humanity.  The  river  in  that  pathetic  poem, 
Down  Stream^  charged  with  the  sweet  softness  of  June, 
and  again  with  the  dark  flood  of  winter,  is  yet  but  the 
image  of  the  love  and  the  ruin  which  were  wrought 


202  Fo\ir  "Victorian  Poets 


^ 


beside  its  stream.  Sometimes  a  transient  loveliness  of 
nature,  felt  as  if  it  were  an  actual  passion  of  the  soul, 
seems  to  lose  all  that  is  material  and  become  a  spiritual 
thing.  In  this  intimate  and  vital  bringing  together, 
without  fusion,  of  nature  and  human  passion,  Rossetti 
is  able  to  create  strange  and  subtle  verses  which  seem 
to  be  neither  quite  of  nature  or  of  the  soul,  but  of  some 
religion  between  both,  where  nature  appears  to  claim 
the  attributes  of  man,  and  man  to  claim  the  energies 
of  nature.  Nature  and  man  are  not  united  in  them  ; 
the  next  moment,  the  next  line,  they  change  places. 
They  but  touch  and  separate,  but  at  the  moment  of 
touching,  a  strange,  subtly  mingled,  apparently  mean- 
ingless verse  is  bom,  which  leaves  a  clear  impression 
on  the  imagination.     Such  lines  are  these  : 

Through  dark  forest-boughs  in  flight 
The  wind  swoops  onwards  brandishing  the  light. 
The  empty  pastures  blind  with  rain. 
For  leagues  I  saw  the  east  wind  blown. 
Tender  as  dawn's  first  hill-fire,  and  intense 

As  instantaneous  penetrating  sense, 
In  Spring's  first  birth-hour,  of  other  Springs  gone  by. 
The  sunrise  blooms  and  withers  on  the  hill 
Like  any  hill-flower  ;  and  the  noblest  truth 
Dies  here  to  dust. 

Now  and  then  there  are  separate  lines  of  vivid  de- 
scription of  some  momentary  aspect  or  object  in  nature  ; 
states  of  sky  in  calm  or  storm,  flowers  in  the  woods, 
insects  and  birds, — subjects  common  to  all  poets,  but 
in  Rossetti' s  work  made  uncommon  by  words  so  vital, 
so  clutching  on  the  spiritual  heart  of  the  thing,  and  so 


Dante  Gabriel  Rossetti  203 

rich  in  colour  that  one  feels  only  a  painter  could  have 
found  them.  Indeed  nature  is  used  by  him  as  the 
great  painters  of  Italy  used  her  in  their  pictures,  never 
as  the  subject  of  their  work,  but  as  part  of  its  scenery. 
He  introduces  natural  objects  as  Signorelli  does  the 
flowery  meadows  in  his  altar-piece  in  the  National 
Gallery,  or  as  Titian  paints  the  hills  and  the  sea  in  the 
Bacchus  and  Ariadne — with  as  deep  and  opulent  a 
colour,  with  as  careful  and  truthful  detail,  but  with  a 
more  resolute  symbolism.  Sunlight  in  all  its  ways  and 
moonlight  he  seems  to  have  most  loved  ;  and  perhaps 
it  is  owing  to  the  impossibility  of  realising  moonlight 
in  painting,  that  he  is  so  fond  in  his  poetry  of  moon- 
light. Again  and  again,  in  many  various  aspects  the 
moon  passes  through  his  poems. 

Finally,  he  is  not  one  of  the  greater  poets.  Their 
work  is  of  the  sunlight,  of  the  fresh  air,  of  the  wide 
landscape,  of  human  nature.  His  work  is  of  its  moon- 
light, of  perfumed  air,  of  a  precious  but  a  confined 
landscape.  It  is  poetry  of  a  private  chamber,  of  an 
isolated  glade  in  the  forest,  of  an  island  secluded  in 
tropic  seas.  It  is  of  the  particular,  not  of  the  universal. 
Only  rarely  does  he  touch  the  primeval,  natural  foun- 
dations of  man's  nature,  and  when  he  does  the  natural 
passions  he  describes  are  shown  in  remote,  involved 
weirds,  or  strange  circumstances,  such  as  appeal  to  the 
experience  of  only  a  few  persons.  This  puts  him  as  a 
poet  on  a  much  lower  plane  than  is  occupied  by  poets 
of  a  larger  range.     But  then,  within  this  enclosed 


204  Four  Victorian  Poets 

garden  of  poetry,  tlie  flowers,  the  paths,  the  waters, 
the  buildings,  are  of  an  exquisiteness,  a  finish,  a  colour 
and  beauty  which  are  rare,  specialised,  and  of  a  seclus- 
ive  charm.  We  walk  in  it  for  a  time  with  a  lonely 
pleasure,  and  then  we  leave  it  for  the  open  country  and 
the  free  air  and  the  boundless  ocean  of  poetry. 


WILUAM  MORRIS 

THK  analogy  I  have  drawn  in  the  last  essay  be- 
tween the  histoy  and  the  causes  of  the  rise  of  a 
new  kind  of  poetry  in  Keats  and  now  in  Rossetti 
and  Morris  is,  I  have  said,  more  clearly  represented  in 
Morris  than  in  Rossetti.  I  have  heard  of  persons, 
anxious  to  free  Morris's  youthful  life  from  the  charge 
of  indifference  to  the  problems  of  his  day,  who  have 
culled  out  of  his  letters  and  talk  at  Oxford,  and  shortly 
after  he  left  it,  phrases  which  seem  to  represent  that  he 
was  vitally  interested  in  the  questions  which  disturbed 
the  world  of  England  when  he  was  young.  It  is  true 
that  he  spoke  of  these  questions  when  they  turned  up, 
or  when  a  friend  interested  in  them  came  from  the 
noisy  world  without  into  the  quietudes  of  Oxford ;  but 
by  the  time  he  wrote  his  first  book  of  poetry,  indeed, 
after  that  journey  in  France  when  he  and  Burne- Jones 
resolved  to  give  up  going  into  the  Church,  his  indiffer- 
ence to  the  theological,  political,  philosophic,  and  social 
questions  of  the  day  had  risen  into  boredom.  He 
ignored  them  completely,  and  so  did  his  friend,  Bume- 
Jones.  And  Morris  cried,  like  Keats — "  My  world  is 
disenchanted.    Where  shall  I  find  loveliness  ?    Where 

does  Beauty  sleep  ?    There  is  the  healing  of  humanity  ; 

205 


2o6  Fo-ur  Victorian  Poets 

there  is  truth."  This  single  faith  and  cry  of  his  youth, 
this  identity  of  feeling  towards  the  world  which  en- 
compassed them,  knits  Morris  and  Keats  together. 

The  analogy  fits  closely,  yet  in  many  points  they 
differed  from  one  another.  Morris  was  a  stronger, 
robuster  nature  than  Keats,  healthier  in  body  and 
therefore  in  soul.  He  knew  clearly,  as  Keats  knew 
indistinctly,  what  he  wanted  to  do,  and  to  live ;  and 
when  he  found  it  out,  he  put  aside  other  objects,  having 
eminently  the  power  of  rejection,  and  went  straight  to 
his  aim  ;  nor  did  he  ever  rest  a  moment  till  he  had,  as 
far  as  he  could,  attained  it.  While  his  striving  to  any 
chosen  goal  lasted,  he  saw  nothing  else  in  the  world. 
When  he  had  reached  his  goal,  fulfilled  his  aim,  he 
took  up  another  object  and  marched  to  it  with  the  same 
absorption,  with  the  sanie  intensity  of  will.  Except, 
of  course,  in  his  callow  youth,  there  was  nothing  tenta- 
tive about  Morris.  In  all  this  he  differed  from  Keats, 
and  most  of  all  in  this — that  in  after  life  the  social 
problems  of  the  present  seized  on  him,  and  he  flung 
himself,  with  his  native  impetuosity,  into  the  bettering 
of  the  human  race.  The  call  of  the  present  drew  him 
out  of  his  beloved  past. 

Keats,  had  the  world  changed  around  him,  would— 
it  is  plain  from  his  letters — have  suffused  his  poems 
with  an  atmosphere  fit  for  such  a  time  and  in  sympathy 
with  it.  We  think,  with  a  deep  regret,  that  had  he 
only  lived  ten  years  longer  he  would  have  found  him- 
self in  the  midst  of  national,  political,  and  spiritual 


"William    Morris  207 

emotions,  and  have  been  thrilled  by  them  into  a  poetry 
more  vital  of  the  present.  Think  of  Keats  living  in 
the  movements  of  1832  ;  writing  with  Tennyson  and 
Browning  ;  moved  by  their  emotions  !  He  would  not, 
indeed,  have  flung  himself,  as  Morris  did  in  his  after 
life,  into  the  hottest  of  the  fight  of  humanity.  He 
had  neither  the  fierce  intensity  nor  the  versatility  of 
Morris  ;  but  he  would  have  humanised  his  poetry.  He 
would  have  felt  in  every  vein  the  new  emotions  and 
their  ideas.  That  fresh  world  would  have  sucked  him 
in  ;  and  the  mythology  of  Greece  and  the  stories  of  the 
fourteenth  century  would  have  yielded  to  the  life  of 
the  England  in  which  he  lived.  This  Keats  had  begun 
to  feel ;  at  this  Morris  arrived. 

Morris  had  even  greater  reason  than  Keats  for  his 
rejection  of  the  present.  Beauty  had  wholly  disap- 
peared from  life ;  and  the  horrors  of  its  absence  had 
reached  their  height  in  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  The  vituperation  of  a  lifetime  would  scarcely 
exhaust  the  just  abhorrence  of  the  ugliness  of  the  first 
twenty  years  of  Victoria's  reign.  Art  had  all  but 
perished  :  painting  save  among  the  landscape  painters  ; 
sculpture  and  architecture  were  mere  conventions. 
They  had  neither  truth  to  nature,  nor  imagination,  nor 
originality.  Restoration  had  raised  its  fiendish  hands, 
and  was  tearing  down  what  beauty  was  left  in  the  old 
buildings,  or  replacing  it  with  soulless  imitation.  Ox- 
ford was  still  fair,  but  its  devastation  had  begun. 

Again,  I  have  traced  in  this  book  how  the  great 


2o8  Four  Victorian  Poets 

excitements  of  1830  and  the  following  years  exhausted 
themselves  as  poetic  impulse,  and  became  first  sensa- 
tional, and  then,  met  by  historical  and  scientific  criti- 
cism, were  involved  in  a  scepticism,  barren  of  poetic 
passion,  and  in  an  intellectual  analysis,  barren  of  beauty. 
Arnold  represented  what  the  poet  became  in  such  a 
time ;  and  if  poetry  were  again  to  arise,  it  would  have 
to  get  clear  of  all  these  questions  of  history  and  science 
and  theology.  Rossetti  emancipated  poetry,  almost  al- 
together, from  these  chains.  Morris  altogether  set  it 
free.  He  fled  away  firom  the  dull  world  around  him, 
beset  as  it  was  with  the  questions  of  the  understanding 
only ;  and  fled  farther  away,  with  horror,  from  the 
world  outside  Oxford,  where  material  aims  and  material 
ugliness  were  wickedly  despotic.  He  refused  to  live 
in  this  decay ;  shut  his  eyes  to  the  ugliness  among 
which  he  lived,  felt  too  much  life  in  him  to  endure  the 
exhaustion  of  passion  and  beauty  which  characterised 
society,  was  sick  of  the  theological  and  political  squab- 
bles, felt  no  sympathy  with  the  critical  or  the  revolu- 
tionary movements — not  even  with  1848 — flung  ofi"  his 
shoulders,  with  a  grim  laugh,  the  whole  atmosphere  of 
time,  and  went,  as  if  it  were  round  the  corner,  to  live, 
and  move,  and  have  his  being  in  the  thirteenth  and 
fourteenth  centuries.  This  was,  in  spirit,  the  very  thing 
Keats  did  in  his  time  ;  and,  as  I  have  said,  for  similar 
reasons.  And  the  poetry  of  Morris  which  came  out  of 
it  was  of  a  similar  type  to  that  of  Keats — a  pure  ro- 
mantic poetry  ;  a  hundred  miles  away  firom  the  human 


William    Morris  209 

life  of  his  own  day ;  with  a  touch  in  it  of  mediaeval 
mysticism  which  Keats  did  not  possess  so  fully  ;  with 
more  also  of  humanity,  but  with  the  same  supreme  love 
of  loveliness  as  Keats  possessed ;  and  especially,  with 
a  similar,  minute,  intensely  observant,  rich  and  never- 
wearied  vision  and  worship  of  natural  beauty,  of  birds 
and  wild  animals,  of  woods  and  streams,  and  the  goings 
on  of  the  earth,  the  weather,  and  the  sky. 

The  love  of  the  earth  and  all  her  doings  and  grow- 
ings, and  of  the  business,  moods,  and  fancies  of  the 
heavens  which  belonged  to  the  earth  as  the  great 
mother's  husband,  was  deep  in  Keats;  but  it  was 
deeper  in  Morris.  No  tongue  can  tell  how  Morris  loved 
the  earth  ;  she  was  his  delight,  his  joy,  his  refuge,  his 
home;  the  companion  of  his  uncompanionable  thoughts  ; 
his  mother  from  whose  breasts  he  drank  life,  energy, 
food  for  his  work,  joy  for  his  imagination,  and  incessant 
beauty.  No  one  has  praised  her  better  ;  and  his  poetry 
of  nature  reveals  how  close,  how  passionate  he  was  in 
his  worship.  She  was  the  only  thing  left  here  and 
there  in  England  unspoiled  for  him  by  the  commercial 
spirit ;  unrestored  by  the  pretenders  to  art ;  unconven- 
tionalised  by  the  false  worshippers  of  a  false  beauty. 
And  when  he  rowed  up  the  Thames  between  the  mead- 
ows filled  with  haymakers,  or  walked  over  the  downs 
where  the  yews  and  junipers  clustered  in  groups  along 
the  Pilgrim  way,  he  could,  even  in  the  nineteenth  cent- 
ury believe  himself  still  in  the  fourteenth.  Thames 
was  unchanged,  and  the  woods.  At  any  moment  he 
14 


2IO  Foxjir  Victorian  Poets 


might  see  a  clump  of  spears  come  along  the  riverwa> 
or  the  bowman  issue  from  the  trees,  or  the  monk  come 
from  the  grey  abbey  to  the  village  green,  or  the  farmer 
bid  his  wife  and  girls  farewell  in  the  garden,  or 
the  knight  blaze  the  landscape  into  sudden  colour, 
as  he  rode  under  his  banner  to  meet  King  Kdward. 
Nature,  at  least,  in  the  places  he  loved,  was  not  out 
of  harmony  with  the  England  of  the  fourteenth 
century. 

Many  years  afterwards,  when  his  passionate  human- 
ity had  forced  him  into  real  touch  with  the  misery  of 
great  cities — a  misery  of  sordidness  and  ugliness  and 
base  living,  as  great  among  the  richer  as  among  the 
poorer  classes,  for,  save  for  comfort,  both  rich  and 
poor  lived  in  hideous  conditions — he  was  not  content 
any  longer  to  live  only  in  the  past.  He  came  to  live  in 
the  faith  and  hope  of  a  better  future  ;  and,  in  that  most 
imaginative  of  books,  News  from  Nowhere^  he  painted 
what  England  might  become  a  century  or  two  hence 
under  a  new  regime  ;  the  foundation  of  which  was  the 
universal  prevalence,  among  the  people,  of  intelligent 
joy  in  the  work  of  their  hands.  Out  of  this  joy  in 
work  would  arise,  he  thought,  a  desire  for  loveliness 
and  its  expression  in  things  made,  till  everything  in 
the  whole  land  would  be  at  once  useful  and  beautiful. 
But  in  that  book,  in  which  the  whole  world  is  different 
from  ours,  a  great  deal  of  nature  was  not  different  from 
that  which  he  saw,  and  we  may  still  behold  to-day. 
The  vales  and  hills  which  had  been  destroyed  are  in 


\ 


William   Morris  211 

that  book  rescued  from  smoke  and  dirt ;  the  ruin  of 
nature  by  commercialism  in  the  places  where  she  had 
been  ttirned  into  hell  is  repaired  ;  the  towns  are  sweet 
and  clean,  the  architecture  is  noble ;  but  there  are 
many  places  described  in  News  from  Nowhere  which 
had  not  in  his  time  been  ruined,  and  which  needed  no 
repair.  The  reaches  of  the  Thames  which  he  dwells 
on  so  lovingly  in  this  book  are  still  the  same  as  he 
pictured  them  in  the  fourteenth  century  ;  as  they  were 
for  him  round  Kelmscott  in  the  nineteenth.  The  gar- 
dens of  rustic  England  are  the  same,  and  the  summer 
woods;  and  the  soft  grey  skies,  or  the  sunshine  of 
June,  or  the  fruitful  rain-cloud — these,  for  him,  were 
constant.  Chaucer  knew  them  ;  Morris  knew  them  ; 
the  lovers  of  four  generations  hence  will  also  know 
them.  Yes,  in  all  his  trouble  and  striving;  in  an 
imaginative  life  which  spent  its  days  now  in  a  world 
six  hundred  years  ago,  and  now  in  a  world  a  hundred 
years  hence,  and  then  again  in  the  world  which  encom- 
passed him  while  he  lived  among  us — in  a  life,  that  is, 
which  by  knowledge,  and  in  fancy,  made  him  partaker 
of  the  changes  of  seven  hundred  years — Morris  had 
one  unchanging  sphere  of  loveliness  in  which  to  rest 
and  be  happy — one  world  which  never  varied  in  its 
beauty,  and  never  deceived  his  love — the  charmed  and 
charming  doings  of  the  earth  and  sky  in  winter  and 
spring,  in  summer  and  autumn.  The  most  emotional 
expressions,  charged  with  the  deep  simplicity  of  pas-  ^ 
sion,  which  occur  in  all  his  writings  are  those  in  which 


212  Fo\jir  Victorian  Poets 

he  expresses  his  love  of  the  earth  and  all  its  doings. 
Here  are  two  : 

"She  led  me  close  up  to  the  house,  and  laid  her 
shapely  brown  hand  and  arm  upon  that  lichened  wall, 
as  if  to  embrace  it,  and  cried  out :  *  O  me,  O  me  ;  how 
I  love  the  earth,  and  the  seasons,  and  weather,  and  all 
things  that  deal  with  it,  and  all  that  grows  out  of  it,  as 
this  has  done.' 

''She  led  me  to  the  door,  murmuring  little  above 
her  breath  as  she  did  so  :  *  The  earth  and  the  growth 
of  it,  and  the  life  of  it !  If  I  could  but  say  or  show 
how  I  love  it ! '  " 

And  here  is  a  piece  of  poetry  which,  in  its  poetic 
reticence,  is  not  less  impassioned : 

JUNE. 


O  June,  O  June  that  we  desired  so, 
Wilt  thou  not  make  us  happy  on  this  day  ? 
Across  the  river  thy  soft  breezes  blow 
Sweet  with  the  scent  of  beanfields  far-away, 
Above  our  heads  rustle  the  aspens  grey, 
Calm  is  the  sky  with  harmless  clouds  beset, 
No  thought  of  storm  the  morning  vexes  yet. 


See,  we  have  left  our  hopes  and  fears  behind 

To  give  our  very  hearts  up  unto  thee  ; 

What  better  place  than  this  then  could  we  find 

By  this  sweet  stream  that  knows  not  of  the  sea, 

That  guesses  not  the  city's  misery. 

This  little  stream  whose  hamlets  scarce  have  names. 

This  far-oflf,  lonely  mother  of  the  Thames  ? 


"William   Morris  213 

Here  then,  O  June,  thy  kindness  will  we  take  ; 

And  if  indeed  but  pensive  men  we  seem, 

What  should  we  do  ?     Thou  wouldst  not  have  us  wake 

From  out  the  arms  of  this  rare  happy  dream 

And  wish  to  leave  the  murmur  of  the  stream, 

The  rustling  boughs,  the  twitter  of  the  birds, 

And  all  thy  thousand  peaceful  happy  words. 

He  who  would  drink  deep  of  the  milk  and  wine  of 
the  earth,  and  honour  and  love  the  great  heavens,  and 
know  the  inner  life  of  the  seasons,  and  what  they  do 
for  us,  their  guests,  would  do  well  to  read  the  introduc- 
tions to  the  Tales  in  The  Earthly  Paradise.  They  sing 
from  March  to  February  the  story  of  the  year.  They 
are  a  fit  and  alluring  introduction  to  the  natural  descrip- 
tions in  the  tales  themselves,  which,  in  their  multitude 
of  observation  and  truth,  will  double  and  redouble  the 
love  of  English  scenery.  But  of  these  I  must  write 
hereafter. 

This  love  of  his  kept  him  always  ideal,  always 
romantic;  and  in  his  poetry,  simple,  sensuous,  and 
passionate.  In  one  moment,  when  he  pleased,  he 
could  slip  out  of  the  worries  of  business,  the  trouble 
of  life,  the  quarrels  of  the  socialist  bodies,  the  noise  of 
the  battle,  into  peace  and  joy,  into  pure  pleasure  of  the 
senses,  into  the  spirit  and  simplicity  of  beauty,  and 
that  uplifted  passion  for  it,  which  *  *  after  no  repenting 
draws."  No  one  could  detach  himself  more  quickly, 
more  completely  fronl  his  surroundings,  and  pass  with 
greater  ease  into  another  life  and  time.  But  it  was 
his  love  of  nature  which  made  the  magic  element  in 


214  Fovir  Victorian  Poets 

which  he  could  practise  his  detachments.  And  if  we 
need  proof  of  this,  it  is  enough  to  read  the  beginning 
oi  John  Ball  and  of  News  from  Nowhere. 

At  present,  while  he  was  young,  he  lived  in  the  life, 
the  scenery,  and  the  feeling  of  the  thirteenth  and  four- 
teenth centuries.  I  cannot  conceive  a  greater  detach- 
ment from  his  own  time  than  his  was  in  his  imaginative 
and  musing  youth.  He  lived  fully,  it  is  true,  in  all 
the  athleticism  of  the  young  :  walking,  rowing,  fencing, 
and  playing :  but  these  were,  even  more  fully  than 
now,  practised  in  his  beloved  centuries.  So,  whatever 
he  did,  he  still  moved  among  his  fellows,  as  if  he  were, 
by  some  spell,  surrounded  with  an  aura  of  the  past ; 
and  indeed  Bume- Jones  and  Rossetti  were,  in  this,  not 
far  behind  him.  It  was  pleasant  to  hear  Bume- Jones 
tell — the  contrasts  of  the  scene  were  so  strange — how, 
frequently,  in  the  long  walks  he  and  Rossetti  took  at 
night  when  they  were  young,  they  used  to  go  for  re- 
freshment into  the  public-house  nearest  at  hand,  and, 
leaning  over  the  counter,  forget  where  they  were,  see- 
ing nothing  of  the  rough  people  round  them,  while 
they  continued  their  discussion  of  Arthur  and  Guen- 
evere  and  I^ancelot,  of  Sir  Percival  and  the  Holy 
Grail. 

The  present  disappeared  from  these  men,  but  most 
of  all  from  Morris.  Nor  was  the  atmosphere  in  which 
he  lived  merely  imaginary.  Ever  since  he  was  a  boy 
he  had  studied  the  architecture,  the  clothing,  the 
manners,  the  agriculture,  the  war-customs  and  weap- 


William    Morris  215 

ons,  the  monastic  life,  the  manuscripts,  the  ways  of 
writing  and  illumination,  the  furniture,  the  dresses, 
the  colours  of  armour  and  heraldry,  the  houses,  huts, 
and  castles  of  that  ancient  time.  His  friends  at 
Oxford  were  astonished  by  his  knowledge,  and  all  his 
life  long  he  went  on  increasing  it.  ffis  imaginative 
musings  had  then  accurate  material  to  work  upon. 
The  world  he  created  was  true,  and  became  so  living, 
so  actual  to  him,  that  he  could,  almost  day  by  day, 
invent  stories  out  of  its  life,  with  a  flavour  of  Froissart 
in  them,  and  with  a  strange  reality.  Three  or  four 
prose  stories  in  the  Oxford  and  Cambridge  Magazine 
prove  this  power  of  his,  the  best  of  which  is  The  Hollow 
Land,  These,  however,  are  over-fantastic ;  but  there 
are  poems  of  this  imaginative  world  in  Guenevere,  his 
first  book,  which  have  all  the  grim  reality  of  the  wars 
and  feuds  of  the  thirteenth  century  ;  not  tales  told  out 
of  Froissart  or  any  chronicle,  but  invented.  Of  these, 
Sir  Peter  Harpdon' s  End  is  one,  and  The  Haystack  in 
the  Floods  another. 

Yet,  in  spite  of  this  active  life  in  another  world,  he 
could  not  altogether  shake  away  all  impressions  from 
the  world  of  fifty  years  ago.  He  knew  what  was 
around  him,  and  it  formed  behind  his  imagined  life  a 
dim  background  of  horror  and  hatefulness  which  sent 
into  his  heart  waves  of  distress  and  pain.  They 
seemed  to  come  from  far  away,  to  knit  him  up  with  a 
dreadful  story,  to  bring  unreality  into  the  happy  life 


2i6  Fo\ir  Victorian  Poets 

lie  lived — so  that  lie  could  not  tell  which  life  was  the 
true  one,  which  was  the  dream,  and  which  the  reality. 
This  uncertainty  as  to  where  he  was,  as  to  what  world 
he  belonged  to,  naturally  increased  when  in  his  man- 
hood he  was  brought  closely  into  contact  with  the  life 
lived  by  the  poor  and  working  people  of  this  * '  city  of 
dreadful  night,"  with  the  vain  and  ugly  lives  of  the 
richer  classes,  with  all  the  vast  blunders  of  society. 
The  consciousness  of  this  drove  its  pain  into  his  far-off, 
imaginary  life,  and  continually  disturbed  it.  He  rarely 
got  completely  away.  What  was  easy  for  him  in  his 
youth  was  very  difficult  for  him  when  he  was  forty-five. 
He  tells  at  the  beginning  of  News  from  Nowhere  how 
one  night  he  slipped  into  another  world,  and  lived  in 
it  for  many  days.  But  always,  he  was  haunted  there 
with  dim  whispering  that  he  was  not  its  actual  in- 
dweller ;  the  people  he  lived  with  seemed  to  know  that 
he  must  go  back,  till  at  last  when  the  end  draws  near 
and  he  must  return,  he  describes  with  much  subtlety 
of  feeling  how  this  new  world  which  had  come  to  be 
very  real  to  him  wavered,  closed,  opened  again,  and 
again  closed;  how  the  faces  and  voices  of  his  friends 
grew  slowly  dim,  how  they  looked  on  him  with  sor- 
row, and  talked  of  his  going,  and  how  at  last  the 
dearm  vanished,  and  he  found  himself  on  the  dreary 
road  near  Kelmscott  House,  and  face  to  face  with  a 
miserable  man. 

That  book  with  the  Dream  of  John  Ball  reveal  the 
double  soul  and  life  of  Morris.     One  may  read  in  them 


William   Morris  217 

what  filled  his  spirt  when  he  was  silent.  It  was  thus 
he  felt  in  middle  age.  But  when  he  was  younger,  and 
battered  with  consciousness  of  the  present  world,  he 
rushed  into  a  state  of  fierce  resentment,  and  spared  in 
his  speech  no  one  and  no  thing.  In  furies  of  this  kind 
he  was  like  a  Baresark  ;  and  it  was  wonderful  to  hear 
him.  He  was  not  eloquent  in  his  rages,  but  emphatic. 
And  what  impression  he  then  made  on  his  young  com- 
panions— when,  for  example,  he  found  himself  before 
a  restored  church — was  made  by  furious  repetition  of 
furious  phrases.  Then,  having  thus  awakened,  like 
the  sleeping  warrior  in  the  cavern,  and  drawn  his  sword 
half  from  its  sheath,  he  lapsed  back  again  into  his  own 
youthful  world,  where  men  were  telling  each  other 
how  Arthur  rode  against  the  heathen,  and  Lancelot 
loved  the  Queen,  and  the  ladies  went  a-Maying,  and 
the  hosts  lay  round  Joyous  Gard,  and  Tristram  laid  on 
Isolt's  lips  the  immortal  kiss,  and  Guenevere  sinned  in 
joy,  repented  in  sadness ;  and  where,  in  real  war,  and 
not  in  legend,  Chandos  and  Manny  and  the  Black 
Prince  and  the  Free  Companions  fought  in  France  and 
Spain — where  the  ships  with  banners  flying  returned 
to  England,  and  the  Abbeys  by  the  river  received  the 
wounded,  and  welcomed  the  merchant  and  the  scholar ; 
and  the  great  churches  rose,  day  by  day,  into  loveliness 
at  the  hands  of  workmen  who  invented  and  loved  their 
work. 

This  life  and  its  capacities  were  sufficiently  imagina- 
tive ;  a  thousand  miles  away  from  the  sordid  psychol- 


2i8  Fo\jr  Victorian  Poets 

ogy  of  modern  literature.  Out  of  it  grew  all  Morris's 
earliest  poetry,  not  one  line  of  which  had  to  do  with 
any  base  or  commonplace  subject,  not  one  line  of  : 
which  was  written  under  the  belief  that  close  and  | 
clever  description  of  what  was  ugly  could,  even  in  i 
madness,  be  called  art.  But  ideal  as  this  imagined 
life  was,  it  was  not  more  ideal  than  the  steady  temper 
of  his  soul.  No  one  who  met  Morris  for  the  first  or 
second  time,  or  only  met  him  as  an  acquaintance, 
would  be  likely  to  credit  him  with  the  ideal  temper, 
and  indeed  he  abhorred  a  great  deal  which  is  now 
called  ideal.  He  was  sometimes  amazingly  rude, 
gruff,  and  let  his  wraths  loose  without  restraint.  He 
dressed  like  a  rough  sailor  ;  he  liked  at  times  to  be  a 
bit  of  a  boor.  He  never  trimmed  his  speech,  nor  his 
manner  when  he  did  not  like  people,  except  when  he 
wanted  to  push  forward  principles  he  cared  for.  Then 
he  subdued  himself.  He  had  not  a  trace  of  luxury  or 
fine  living.  His  simplicity  ran  into  roughness  among 
those  who  were  not  simple.  A  being  more  apart  from  the 
conception  of  ideality  framed  by  the  fine  social  folk, 
or  by  the  little  gods  of  culture,  cannot  be  imagined. 
Yet  if  I  were  asked  what  especially  characterised 
Morris's  temper  of  soul,  all  his  life  long,  the  views  he 
took  of  men  and  of  womanhood,  of  life  as  it  ought  to 
be  lived,  of  his  poetry  and  prose,  of  his  aims  for 
craftmanship  in  all  the  arts  of  life,  I  should  say  that 
they  all  arose  out  of,  and  were  steeped  in,  the  ideal 
temper  of  his  soul. 


William  Morris  219 

Sweetest  nut  hath  sourest  rind, 
Such  a  nut  is  Rosalind. 

He  saw  everything  he  cared  to  write  about  through 
the  veil  of  ideal  beauty.  What  faults  any  subject  had, 
or  any  time  or  place  he  described,  if  they  were  natural 
— that  is,  in  the  necessities  of  the  thing — were  either 
unimportant  to  him,  or  were  used  as  foils  to  enhance 
the  beauty  he  loved.  He  raised  magnanimity,  cour- 
age, strength,  natural  passion,  natural  good  sense  in 
affairs,  love  of  the  commonweal  as  contrasted  with 
selfish  individualism,  honest  labour,  ardent  fighting, 
frank  generosity,  steady  persistency  in  pursuit  of  a 
chosen  goal,  to  the  highest  point  in  men,  and  repre- 
sented their  ideal  in  the  action  and  life  of  his  men. 
As  to  the  women  in  his  tales,  of  whom  I  shall  say 
more  hereafter,  I  do  not  think  in  the  whole  of  litera- 
ture  there  is  anything  more  ideally  noble  than  the  y 
women  whom  he  has  created  out  of  his  own  soul  in 
tales  such  as  The  Roots  of  the  Mountains  2m^  The  House 
of  the  Wolfings.  Yes ;  the  humanity  Morris  draws,  / 
when  he  dips  his  pencil  in  the  colours  of  his  own  soul,  • 
is  an  idealised  humanity,  and  for  that  may  God  bej 
praised. 

Then  he  idealised  the  times  of  which  he  wrote,  their  ' 
customs,  life,  and  their  works.      He  scarcely  saw  a 
single  fault  in  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries, 
or  in  the  period  told  of  in  the  Northern  Sagas.     More- 
over, he  idealised  the  natural  scenery  he  loved;  andj 
by  idealising  it,  made  it  more  real  than  it  had  been 


2  20  Fo\ir  Victorian  Poets  j 

before  to  thousands  of  men  and  women  who  had  lived 
in  it  without  seeing  it.       But  his  idealisation  was 
balanced  away  from  over-softness  or  preciosity,  by  liis 
unmitigated  wrath  with  all  that  was  base  or  ugly — by  ] 
his  indignation  with  the  men  and  the  things  that  he  ' 
hated  because  they  crushed  the  soul  and  brains  of  men. 
It  was  refreshing,   among  the  smooth  and  excusing 
folk  who  slur  over  what  is  mean,  and  exalt  the  com- 
monplace, and  serve  the  devil  up  in  sugar,  and  praise 
the  accepted,  and  have  no  individual  opinions,  to  hear 
Morris  launch  out  against  the  things  he  abominated. 
The  lifeless  maxims  and  conventions  of  society,  the 
greed  and  luxury,  the  base  competition,  by  any  means, 
for  wealth,  the  dishonesty,  and  bad  workmanship  of 
trade,  the  destruction  by  machinery  of  the  workman's 
intelligence  and  his  love  of  making  something  out  of  ■ 
his  own  head — these,  and  many  other  revolting  things,  1 
he  realised,  even  more  than  Ruskin,  for  what  they  i 
were ;  and  he  stripped  them  to  the  bone  and  mocked 
their  ugliness.     The  only  thing  in  relation  to  them  ; 
which  I  may  say  he  idealised,  raising  it  to  its  highest 
power,  was  his  own  hatred  of  them.    It  became  a  kind 
of  heroic  phrenzy.    He  felt,  like  Hercules,  in  these 
hours,  as  if  the  coat  of  Nessus  wrapped  him  round  ; 
and  he  behaved  like  Hercules.       But  his   outward 
words    of   wrath    were    but    a    faint   image  of  the 
vital  misery  his  sotil   endured  at  living  in  a  world 
where  he  often  felt  that  his  struggle  to  mend  it  was   \ 
hopeless. 


William  Morris  221 

Dreamer  of  dreams,  born  out  of  my  due  time, 
Why  should  I  strive  to  set  the  crooked  straight  ? 

Then  it  was,  in  order  to  restore  his  soul  and  to  relieve 
his  pain,  he  flitted  out  of  it  all  into  communion  with 
an  imagined  world — the  world  of  the  past  he  pictured 
in  John  Ball,  the  world  of  the  future  he  pictured  in 
News  from  Nowhere.  I  scarcely  know  anything  more 
pathetic  than  the  image  of  Morris,  when  —  having 
spent  a  whole  day  in  the  dirty  discomfort  of  the 
lyondon  streets,  speaking  to  the  poor  folk  in  their 
hideous  caverns  in  the  rain  and  mist,  attending  small 
Socialist  meetings  and  trying  to  get  the  quarrelling 
men  to  unite,  joining  processions  to  ask  for  reforms 
he  knew  would  not  be  granted,  lecturing  on  art  to 
people  who  did  not  understand  him,  and  returning 
utterly  wearied  out  and  depressed  —  when,  having 
done  all  this,  he  rose  next  morning  at  six,  and,  while 
the  air  was  yet  fresh  and  pure  and  the  Thames  that 
flowed  past  his  study  windows  at  Hammersmith  blue 
under  the  sky  of  the  spring,  sat  down  to  clean  his  soul 
and  pour  dew  upon  it,  to  enable  his  powers,  and  make 
strong  his  hopes,  by  writing  of  the  healthy,  happy 
folk  of  Burgdale,  of  the  fair  valley  and  rivers  and 
houses,  and  of  the  wise,  strong,  natural,  honest,  and 
loving  people,  who  tilled  their  land  and  loved  it  so 
well,  and  who,  when  the  hour  of  trial  came,  fought  for 
it  so  joyously  against  the  Dusky  men.  The  hours 
sHpped  away  as  he  wrote  of  his  ideal,  and  he  never 
thought  of  the  torment  of  the  day.     But,  when  the 


22  2  Ko"ur  Victorian  Poets 


I 


writing  dream  was  over,  he  went  out  to  meet  the 
actual  he  hated  and  helped  with  the  courage  and 
strength  that  he  had  won  by  living  in  the  imagined 
world,  which  men  called  an  impossible  ideal,  but 
which  he  felt  and  hoped  would  become  a  reality. 

So,  in  these  later  days  at  least,  however  ideal  in  aim, 
subject,  and  form  his  literary  work  was,  his  soul,  by 
which  he  wrote,  was  continuously  in  contact  with  what 
we  ought  to  call  real  life  ;  and  it  proves  the  fineness  of 
his  nature  that  the  misery,  incapacity,  and  all  the 
hated  things  he  touched  to  the  quick,  did  not  for  a 
single  moment  dim  the  beauty,  brightness,  clearness, 
joy,  peace,  and  possibility  of  his  ideal.  Its  heaven  was 
always  beautiful,  and  he  rose  into  it  in  a  moment, 
l^hus,  like  this  earth,  he  went  round  his  axis,  half  in 
light  and  half  in  shade  ;  night  succeeded  day  within, 
and  day  the  night ;  a  strange,  double  life,  whirling 
into  sorrow  and  joy,  hate  and  love,  rage  and  ravish- 
ment. And  in  either  kind  of  life,  all  that  was  done  or 
thought  or  felt  was  fulfilled  with  such  intensity  that, 
without  any  desire  to  be  apart  from  his  fellows,  the 
intensity,  being  heated  seven  times  more  than  it  was 
wont  to  be  heated  in  others,  isolated  him  into  a  separate 
and  solitary  life.  He  was  a  lonely  man  at  root ;  and 
the  sentiment  of  this  solitariness,  which  for  the  most 
part  was  silent,  and  of  which  he  never  boasted,  steals 
forth,  unconsciously  to  himself,  through  all  his  most 
imaginative  poetry  and  prose,  and  fills  it  with  a  dim, 
pathetic  atmosphere;   which,  if  anyone  had  accused 


"William  Morris  223 

him  of  creating,  he  would  have  denied  with  that  indig-% 
nation  which  we  have  when  someone  in  conversation! 
attempts  to  lift  the  veil  which  hides  the  innermostj 
shrine  of  our  heart. 

This  intensity  was  itself  a  part  of  his  ideality,  one 
of  its  forms.  Whatever  he  undertook — poetry,  tales, 
lectures,  social  work,  designing  patterns,  dyeing, 
carpet  making,  silk  weaving,  tapestry,  glass  painting, 
the  printing  press — was  lifted  into  the  ideal  world  by 
his  impassioned  desire  to  make  it  perfect,  to  get  into 
it  the  absolute  of  beauty  of  which  it  was  capable  ;  and 
in  that  aspiration  the  intensity  he  gave  to  the  matter  in 
hand  was  bom.  Whatever  was  in  hand,  it  was  for  the 
moment  the  only  thing  in  the  world  to  do  ;  and  he  lost 
in  it  all  interest  for  the  time  in  any  other  kind  of 
work,  even  in  the  work  of  his  dearest  friends.  Nor 
was  this  intense  desire  for  perfection  left  in  the  vague, 
a  mere  dream  of  aspiration.  He  made  himself  master 
of  all  that  had  been  previously  done  with  regard  to  the 
matter  in  hand,  whether  well  or  ill.  He  bought  every 
book  likely  to  help  him,  ransacking  with  a  kind  of  fury 
every  source  of  information.  Then,  having  thrown 
aside  all  that  was  merely  mechanical  or  ill- wrought  in 
the  practice  of  the  past,  he  practised  the  craft  with  his 
own  hands,  and,  having  learnt  it,  taught  it  to  others. 
He  rejoiced  in  the  mistakes  and  failures  which  pointed 
out  a  better  way  of  doing  the  thing  ;  experimented  on 
all  the  modes  his  predecessors  had  used ;  and  then, 
disdaining  and  hating  imitation,  set  his  own  genius  to 


2  24  Fo\jr  Victorian  Poets  ' 

work,  invented  his  own  ways  and  patterns  and  methods ; 
made  afresh  all  the  means  for  his  work — as,  for  ex- 
ample, the  paper  and  ink  for  his  printing — and  threw 
every  power  he  possessed  into  the  joyous  work  of  crea- 
tion. In  this  aim  at  perfection,  in  this  intensity,  and 
in  this  creativeness,  Morris,  more  than  any  man  of 
whom  I  know,  attained  joy.  If  his  life  was  sometimes 
dark,  sometimes  overladen,  it  was  also  partaker  of 
rapture.  The  word  is  not  too  strong  ;  I  use  it  deliber- 
ately. And  it  was  to  that  becoming  general  over 
England — to  men  making  something  to  represent  their 
own  thought  with  individual  pleasure  in  the  making — 
it  was  to  that  he  looked  forward  as  the  basis  of  a  new 
society  and  a  new  life,  in  which  joy  and  not  sorrow 
would  be  the  atmosphere  of  being  and  becoming. 
That  was  one  of  the  reasons  that  he  liked  the  thirteenth 
and  fourteenth  centuries.  He  had  an  impression,  for 
which  there  were  good  grounds,  that  men  then  made 
what  they  wanted  with  pleasure  in  the  making,  and, 
having  made  the  useful  thing,  liked  to  ornament  it  in 
order  to  satisfy  their  natural  desire  of  beauty ;  and 
thence  became  inventors,  designers,  carvers,  illumin- 
ators, builders — when  they  had  the  power.  The  air  of 
life  was  artistic.  Every  one  made  his  own  needs ;  the 
whole  world  was  making  ;  and  out  of  that  general  and 
intelligent  activity  the  finer  artist  easily  and  frequently 
arose.  In  everything  that  was  made,  even  in  a  chair, 
a  platter,  the  personal  soul  of  the  maker  was  infused 
and  felt.    And  when  any  personal  soul  among  them 


William  Morris  225 

was  inspired  to  more  delicate  and  larger  issues,  he  rose 
out  of  the  lower  into  the  higher  range  of  makers ;  be- 
came the  fuller  artist ;  illuminated  his  book,  wove  his 
tapestries,  painted  his  window,  lifted  his  cathedral  to 
the  heavens — and  all  with  joy.  With  all  this  he  was 
not  ignorant  of  the  other  side  of  things,  of  the  misery 
and  oppression  the  poor  suffered  in  the  bygone  times. 
He  knew  his  history ;  but  he  knew  also  that  this, 
which  is  not  true  of  the  workman  in  our  own  day,  was 
true  then,  that  men,  when  they  had  the  means  to  make 
anything,  rejoiced  in  the  work  of  their  own  hands, 
sent  their  soul  into  it,  permeated  it  with  what  intelli- 
gence and  delight  they  had,  satisfied  partly  in  it  a 
hunger  for  beauty  which  their  society  had,  and  ours 
has  not. 

Ideality,  then,  with  a  clear  sight  of  good  or  bad]  i/ 
reality  ;  intensity,  with  a  clear  knowledge  and  aim  ;  I 
jo}'^  in  creation — these  are  qualities  which  appear  in  all 
the  art-work  of  Morris  from  a  lyric  to  an  initial  letter. 
In  his  youth  they  are  unformed,  but  they  grew  into 
finer  shaping  every  day.  There  was  no  retrogression 
and  no  exhaustion.  The  roots  of  his  genius  were  full 
of  sap. 

I  have  said  he  had  joy  in  creation.  There  are  many 
who  have  this  joy,  but  only  for  a  few  times  in  their 
life.  They  have  no  plenitude  ;  the  wells  from  which 
they  draw  are  not  deep.  They  have  created  half-a- 
dozen  things,  and  then  they  repeat  themselves.  Repe- 
tition is  not  creation,  and  their  joys  are  over.     Had 


2  26  Fo-ur  Victorian  Poets 

Morris  creativeness  ?  Was  he  incessantly  productive 
of  new  things?  When  he  created,  was  his  creation 
full,  crowded,  variously  enlivened  with  freshly  invented 
things  to  be  seen,  felt,  and  loved  ?  That  is  one  of  the 
tests  of  genius. 

I  scarcely  can  point  to  more  than  a  few  who  have 
been  more  productive,  inventive,  creative  than  Morris. 
All  the  arts  and  crafts  which  he  practised  he  made 
afresh.  His  work  on  them  was  not  imitative ;  it  was 
new.  And  he  poured  forth  from  his  creating  hand  a 
succession  of  new  designs,  in  all  branches  of  his  work, 
from  year  to  year,  all  his  life  long,  without  a  single 
repetition.  He  restored  lost  arts — such  as  printing — 
but  with  an  individual  inventiveness,  and  minute  care, 
which  made  the  work  not  a  restoration,  but  a  fresh 
creation.  His  productiveness  was  like  that  of  those 
un tilled  lands  along  the  edge  of  Canada  and  the  United 
States,  which  are  so  rich  in  material  for  com,  that  for 
years  they  need  no  fertilisation.  But  literature,  and 
especially  poetry,  are  higher  arts  than  those  of  the 
crafts.  In  these  also  Morris  was  as  creative  as  in  the 
other  arts,  and  to  the  creativeness  he  added  an  aston- 
ishing rapidity  of  execution.  Of  him  the  old  phrase 
was  really  true — *'To  begin  is  to  have  done  half." 
He  often  wrote  five  hundred  lines  of  verse  a  day,  or 
rather  in  half  a  day.  When  he  determined  to  re-cast 
what  he  had  written,  as  was  the  case  with  his  long  in- 
troduction—  The  Wanderers— \,Q>  The  Earthly  Paradise ^ 
he  did  not  tinker  at  the  old  work,  or  keep  it  lest  he 


William  Morris  227 

should  lose  some  of  its  good  things.  He  flung  the 
whole  of  it  aside,  and  re-wrote  the  thing  quite  freshly, 
so  confident  was  he  that  his  invention  and  productive- 
ness would  not  fail  him,  nor  his  ardour  lessen.  That 
is  not  common  with  literary  men.  Great  fecundity  is 
not  their  failing.  Good  measure,  pressed  down,  and 
shaken  together  and  brimming  over,  we  do  not  often 
receive  into  our  bosom. 

It  is  pleasant  to  think  of  all  Morris  has  created  for 
us.  There  is  his  re-cast  of  the  Arthurian  elements ;  it 
is  not  very  good,  but  it  is  original.  There  are  the 
lyrics  in  his  first  book  which,  with  all  their  weaknesses, 
seem  to  come  out  of  a  world  unknown  to  us  before, 
and  haunted  with  the  things  and  people  we  have  not 
imagined.  There  is  the  story  of  Jason,  with  added  in- 
ventions, all  the  natural  description  re-imagined,  full 
of  unwearied  and  minute  detail,  and  re-conceived  as  a 
mediaeval  Greek — had  he  lived — might  have  conceived 
it.  There  are  the  many  stories  of  The  Earthly  Paradise^ 
each  of  them  also  re-conceived,  re-dressed,  and  localised 
in  a  multitude  of  varied  landscapes.  There  is  the 
Morality  of  Love  is  Eyiough  :  The  Norse  Sagas  re-ani- 
mated for  us  in  prose  and  poetry,  and  the  greatest  of 
them  re-poetised  from  end  to  end ;  the  -^neid,  the 
Odyssey  and  Beowulf  translated  for  English  reading, 
with  Morris's  soul  flitting  through  the  translations  like 
a  dim  scent  of  forgotten  leaves  ;  the  time  of  John  Ball 
made  real  to  us  with  a  modem  application  ;  the  years 
of  the  coming  time  when  society  may  be  re-made  into 


2  28  Four  Victorian  Poets 

peace,  happiness,  and  beauty,  with  all  their  possible 
changes,  told  for  us,  in  lovely  scenery  and  with  gracious 
people — so  imagined  that  the  book  is  the  refreshment 
of  sick  and  wearied  men  and  women  in  this  weary  and 
sick  time,  who  as  they  read  seem  to  live  in  the  happier 
world.  There  are  two  great  stories,  the  first  of  which 
builds  for  us  the  German  life  when  Rome  was  pushing 
at  it  in  the  second  or  third  century,  and  the  second  the 
life  of  those  who  lived  in  his  invented  town  of  Burg- 
dale,  when  the  roving  Huns  came  down  upon  it,  a 
story  which  I  think  the  most  beautiful  prose  thing  that 
he  ever  wrote  ;  not  of  the  witching  beauty  of  the  later 
dream-stories  wholly  outside  of  history  and  this  world 
where  everything  is  frankly  and  freshly  created,  but  of 
a  grave,  steady,  solemnised  beauty,  lovely  as  much  by 
its  strength  as  by  its  grace.  But  I  need  not  dwell  on 
the  rest.  ;  Creativeness  is  at  full  richness  in  Morris. 
Whether  the  creations  ever  rose  into  the  higher  excel- 
lences of  the  greater  men  is  another  question.  It  would 
not  seem  so,  so  far  as  his  poetry  is  concerned.  For, 
first,  hjsrajigejsvas  limited,  though  inside  the  range 
the  poetry  was  of  a  high  excellence ;  and  secondly,  he 
ceased  to  write  poetry,  ceased  indeed  to  care  to  write 
it.  And  none  of  the  greater  poets  have  ever  been  able 
1  to  do  that.  Morris  exhausted  his  fountain  ;  they  could 
I  not.  They  cared,  to  the  end,  for  their  special  art  as 
the  most  loved,  the  most  precious  thing,  in  the  world, 
and  they  wrought  at  it  till  they  died. 
There  are  many  more  things  that  were  made  by 


William  Morris  229 

this  genius,  whom  so  many  wiseacres  looked  on  only 
as  a  decorator  of  houses,  but  I  have  said  enough  to 
prove  his  creative  power — the  power  which  evokes  from 
the  soul  things  unknown,  unseen  before,  for  the  pleasure 
and  good  of  men  ;  which  shapes  and  executes  into  fine 
form  what  is  conceived  within,  and  which  sends  a  spirit 
through  the  new  forms  into  the  heart  of  humanity ;  but 
I  have  said  enough  on  this  point,  and  I  turn  now  to 
the  poetry  itself.  What  rank  it  takes  ;  where  lies  its 
weakness  or  its  power ;  what  are  the  special  elements 
which  make  it  precious  ;  its  range  and  its  limitations ; 
the  originality  of  its  impulse,  and  the  continuity  of  its 
pleasure-giving;  how  far  it  realises  beauty,  and  its 
feeling  for  beauty ;  how  close  it  is  to  human  nature, 
and  how  far  from  it ;  its  matter  of  thought,  its  manner 
and  melody ;  its  description  of  nature  and  its  love  of 
nature,  and  its  development — these  are  matters  all  of 
which  one  cannot  discuss  in  a  short  essay,  from  which 
one  has  to  choose  a  few  only,  or  which  one  can  only 
briefly  touch.  I  hope  I  shall  not  say  too  much  or  too 
little  on  them. 

When  in  1854  Morris  was  twenty-two  years  old,  the 
sorrows  of  the  Crimean  War  and  the  sacrifices  it  had 
demanded  from  England,  had  awakened  the  country, 
which  had  too  much  settled  on  its  lees,  from  a  kind  of 
lethargy.  War  is  an  unhappy  and  extravagant  cure 
for  this  evil  sleep  in  which  the  diseases  of  the  common 
weal  are  neglected,  but  in  the  present  state  of  the  social 


230  Fo\ir  Victorian  Poets 

organism  it  seems  to  be  the  only  thing  which  arouses 
the  comfortable  classes  out  of  a  selfish  into  a  self-sacri- 
ficing life,  which  brings  classes  together,  or  which  knits 
the  nation  into  a  sense  of  its  unity  and  the  duties  of 
that  unity.  It  is  a  miserable  thing  that  the  social  state 
should  be  so  organised  that  only  by  blood-letting  and 
by  the  death  or  sorrow  of  thousands  can  any  wide- 
reaching  remedy  be  applied  to  the  evils  of  greed,  in- 
difference to  public  diseases,  and  the  isolation  of  class 
from  class — and  no  indictment  of  our  existing  state  of 
society  can  be  stronger  than  this.  Yet  so  it  is.  War 
does  awaken  a  country  from  covetousness  ;  does  reveal 
mismanagement  and  degrade  dishonesty,  does  unite  a 
people  under  the  banner  of  ideas  not  of  self-interest ; 
does  preach  to  a  whole  nation  that  pain  and  death  are 
better  than  dishonour  ;  and  that,  not  only  to  those  who 
go  to  battle,  but  even  more  to  those  who  send  their 
loved  ones  to  the  battle.  The  spiritual  result  is 
greatest  when  the  war  is  just  and  needful,  but  it 
follows  even  when  the  war  is  neither  one  nor  the 
other.     It  is  independent  of  the  cause  of  the  war. 

The  Crimean  War,  though  a  mistaken  war,  did  kindle 
the  country  into  some  enthusiasm  for  ideals,  did  stir 
and  strengthen  the  sense  of  duty,  did  awaken  the  sense 
of  honour,  of  courage  for  an  unpersonal  cause,  of  sacri- 
fice for  the  State  and  our  fellow-men  ;  and  that  so 
strongly  that  the  devotion  to  base  and  selfish  ends  was 
for  a  time  lessened  in  England.  The  nation  was  ex- 
cited into  unwonted  and  unselfish  emotion.     Public 


William   Morris  231 

life  gained  some  spiritual  aims.  That  was  the  net 
result  of  a  dreadful  folly. 

A  certain  national  excitement  of  this  kind,  with  some 
ideal  aims  connected  with  it,  not  necessarily  a  war- 
excitement,  puts  all  men,  and  especially  the  young, 
into  a  state  of  thrill,  into  such  a  condition  that  the 
powers  they  possess,  whatever  they  may  be,  desire  to 
exercise  themselves,  to  shape  themselves  into  some 
creation.  The  powers  of  the  mind  and  the  imagination 
are  then  like  young  people  who  wake  on  a  summer 
morning  and  cannot  rest  till  they  are  moving  with 
the  morning.  The  national  excitement  flows  into  the 
hearts  of  men.  And  if  the  men  whom  it  touches 
have  the  gift  of  writing  poetry  they  will  suddenly 
begin  to  exercise  it.     They  break  into  creation. 

It  by  no  means  follows,  that  they  will  write  poetry 
on  the  subject  of  the  national  excitement.  No,  they 
will  write  it  on  their  own  subjects,  on  the  things  for 
which  they  care,  and  these  may  be  quite  apart  and 
away  from  the  national  excitement.  But,  nevertheless, 
that  national  excitement  awakened  their  powers.  In 
the  case  of  Morris,  he  had  been  driven,  in  disgust  with 
the  lifeless  years  before  the  war,  to  find  his  interests 
wholly  in  the  past,  and  the  emotion  he  now  gained 
from  the  national  excitement — even  if  it  was  only  fury 
with  the  idiotic  mismanagement  which  slew  our  soldiers 
like  sheep — was  employed  not  on  the  causes  of  that 
excitement,  or  on  the  excitement  itself,  but  on  his  own 
subjects.     The  excitement  supplied  the  soil  in  which 


232  Fovir  Victorian  Poets 

a  new  poetry  could  grow.  But  the  plant  which  came 
up  had  nothing  to  do  with  any  excitement  in  the 
present.  It  was  a  new  tHing,  and  it  seemed  a  stranger. 
No  one  at  Oxford  or  elsewhere  thought  it  likely  that 
a  new  spring  of  poetry  would  arise  in  the  fifties  of  the 
last  century.  The  general  opinion  was  that  poetry 
had  culminated  in  Tenn5^son,  and  that  nothing  of  an- 
other kind  would  be  produced.  Nevertheless,  Morris, 
quite  unconsciously  and  with  a  strange  imagination 
working  intensely  on  uncommon  matter,  did  begin 
something  which  was  quite  distinct  in  poetry.  He 
thought  as  highly  as  the  rest  of  his  friends  of  Tennyson, 
but  he  was  not  so  wholly  carried  away  as  they  appeared 
to  be.  He  ventured  to  criticise.  Then,  too,  he  had 
read  and  derived  some  impulse  from  Mrs.  Browning, 
and  through  her  from  Browning,  to  whom  he  gave  an 
unstinted  admiration  when  he  came  to  know  him  better. 
So,  when  the  desire  to  write  verse  came  upon  him,  he 
was  not,  like  most  young  men,  checked  into  silence  or 
imitation  by  the  pre-eminence  of  Tennyson.  And  one 
morning,  moved  by  his  own  mediaeval  enthusiasms  and 
thrilled  unconsciously  by  the  national  emotion  which 
streamed  in  on  him  from  England,  he  could  resist  the 
inner  impulse  no  more,  and  the  fountain  of  verse  broke 
forth  in  his  soul.  He  found  his  first  poem.  The  Willow 
and  the  Red  Cliffy  finished  before  he  was  aware  of  it. 
He  read  it  to  his  friends  and  they  proclaimed  him  a 
poet.  **  If  that  is  poetry,"  he  said,  '*  it  is  easy  to  make 
it,"  and  for  some  time  he  produced  some  verse  every 


"William   Morris  233 

day.  I  do  not  know  whether  this  first  conviction  of 
his  friends  was  always  as  sure  as  Canon  Dixon  thinks. 
I  know  that  Burne-Jones  sard  that  he  did  not  feel  at 
first  certain  that  Morris's  poetical  power  was  of  that 
quality  that  would  endure,  but  that  afterwards  he  felt 
assured  of  it .  *  *  How, ' '  I  said.  *  *  Well, ' '  he  answered, 
"he  brought  me  a  poem  one  day — A  Good  Knight  in 
Prison — and  when  he  had  read  the  lines — 

Now  tell  me  you  that  are  in  love 

From  the  King's  son  to  the  wood-dove — 

I  was  sure  it  was  all  right."  It  is  not  difficult  to  see 
what  he  meant. 

Any  kind  of  true  art-passion  fills  every  nook  and 
comer  of  the  soul ;  its  flood  drowns  all  interests  but 
its  own,  until  it  has  given  birth  to  some  creation. 
Then  it  ebbs,  and  another  form  of  art  becomes  the 
ideal,  and  in  its  turn  swells  over  the  soul — a  ifresh  in- 
coming tide.  But  whatever  it  be,  nothing  else,  for  the 
time,  seems  worth  doing.  It  is  life  itself,  and  all 
future  life  seems  filled  with  the  ideals  it  aspires  to 
approach.  This  came  now  on  Bume- Jones  and  Morris. 
Their  Catholic  ideals — they  had  actually  projected  a 
monastery — no  longer  limited  their  thoughts  or  hopes. 
And  they,  and  the  whole  small  brotherhood  of  men 
who  were  gathered  round  them,  now  began,  brimming 
over  with  the  waters  of  immortal  joy,  to  pursue  art  and 
literature  into  the  new  paths  they  had  discovered. 
They  gave  up  everything  else  to  live  and  work  in  this 


234  Foxir  Victorian  Poets 

charmed  world.  They  felt,  like  Wordsworth,  that 
they  were  dedicated  spirits.  All  day  long  Bume- Jones 
worked  at  painting,  and  Morris  at  literature  and  draw- 
ing. Each  gave  to,  and  received  from,  the  other  im- 
pulse and  criticism,  and  knit  together  a  friendship 
which  lasted  unbroken  all  their  lives. 

It  was  now  1855,  and  the  brotherhood  projected  a 
magazine  to  advocate  their  principles.  This  was  the 
Oxford  and  Cambridge  Magazine,  which  was  first  pub- 
lished in  January,  1856,  and  lasted  a  year.  In  it 
Morris  inserted  five  poems  previously  written.  * '  Pre- 
viously," for  he  had  now  ceased  to  write  verses  for  a 
time.  In  the  summer  of  1855  he  had  begun  to  write 
prose  tales  instead  of  verse,  and  eight  of  these  tales 
appear  in  the  magazine.  Meanwhile,  still  in  1855,  he 
had  made  acquaintance  with  the  work  of  the  Pre-Raph- 
aelites  and  read  The  Germ.  To  Bume-Jones  and 
Morris  Hand  and  Soul  became  an  inspiration.  They 
had  not  yet  met  Rossetti,  but  in  that  tale  the  profound 
personal  influence  which  he  had  on  all  the  men  he 
touched  had  already  begun.  The  prose  tales  now  con- 
tinued for  a  year  or  so ;  but  about  1856  a  new  poetic 
impulse  fell  on  Morris.  One  day  Bume-Jones  read  a 
few  pages  of  The  Morte  d'  Arthur  at  a  bookstall,  and 
spoke  of  it  to  Morris,  who  bought  it  instantly.  They 
read  it  together,  and  that  great  book  did  its  spiritual 
and  impelling  work  upon  them.  Along  with  it  came 
the  first  reading  of  Chaucer,  whom  these  two  friends 
went  through  night  after  night  in  1856.     That  poetry 


William  Morris  23S 

fell  like  fertilising  dew  on  them,  and  for  thirty  years,  f 
after  this  rapture  with  Chaucer,  Morris  scarcely  touched 
prose.  Only  in  verse  did  he  speak  in  literature,  and 
he  spoke  under  the  mighty  leading  of  him  whose 
poetry  he  loved  so  well  ;  whom  he  called  his  master, 
under  whose  influence  he  wrote  The  Earthly  Paradise, 
and  the  noble  printing  of  whose  greatest  book  was  the 
last  work  he  did  on  earth. 

This  is  a  sketch,  briefly  touched,  of  how  he  grew  into 
a  poet.  As  to  the  poetry  itself,  it  is  best  to  take  it  as 
it  was  published.  The  Defence  of  Guenevere,  which  is 
the  title  of  the  first  book  he  sent  forth,  was  published 
in  1858.  It  consisted  of  poems  written  in  the  two  pre-  * 
vious  years,  and  of  a  few  of  the  poems  written  in  1854 
and  1855.  Many  poems,  previously  written,  were  not 
included  in  it,  and  it  is  a  pity  that  some  of  them 
perished.     He  made  a  holocaust  of  them  after  the  pub-  j 

lication  of  Guenevere.  A  few,  published  in  the  Oxford 
and  Cambridge  Magazine,  remain,  and  are  enough  to 
show  his  early  hand.  All  of  these,  with  the  exception 
of  one — Pray  but  one  prayer  for  me — belong  to  romance, 
but  are  somewhat  tinged  with  the  manner  and  senti- 
ment of  the  Border  Ballads  of  which  he  was  so  fond. 
Winter  Weather  may  serve  as  an  example  of  these. 
A  knight  rides  out  to  meet  his  enemy  who  has  insulted 
his  lady.  They  tilt  together  under  the  walls  of  the 
town,  and  the  slanderer  is  slain.  His  body  is  borne 
through  the  night  and  laid  beneath  his  own  castle 
walls.     The  poem,  with  its  strong  individual  quality. 


236  Foxir  Victorian  Poets 

is  written  straight  out  of  the  youthful  soul  of  Morris, 
and  that  gives  it  its  charm.  The  pictures  of  the 
horses  and  banners  and  weapons  of  war  ringing  and 
flapping  in  the  midnight  stillness ;  of  the  castle  walls 
and  towers,  of  the  chiming  cities,  of  the  wintry  land- 
scape, of  sudden  fate  and  fierce  revenge,  are  drenched 
in  the  spirit  of  the  adventurous  feuds  of  the  fourteenth 
century.  Moreover,  the  poem  realises  the  same  re- 
markable combination  of  an  ideal  subject,  imaginatively 
conceived  in  complete  apartness  from  the  life  of  his  own 
century,  with  that  close  realism  which  we  have  already 
observed  in  Rossetti's  work.  And,  it  was  quite  new 
poetry,  of  a  clear  original  turn  and  opening  out  a  fresh 
region  in  the  past  for  imaginative  work.  The  Arthur- 
ian legend  had,  of  course,  been  used  by  modern  poets 
before  this,  but  the  fierce  passions  and  deeds  of  the 
French  and  English  war-captains  and  adventurers, 
with  their  historical  and  legendary  romance,  such  as 
we  find  enshrined  in  the  Chronicle  of  Froissart,  these 
had  not,  with  all  their  change  and  colour,  been  touched 
as  yet. 

Morris  found  out  this  untrodden  land,  and  ran  into 
it  with  a  daily  joy — every  day  he  made  a  new  poem — 
and  he  saw  a  multitude  of  events,  and  battles  and 
adventures  therein,  of  which  no  chronicle  told  him, 
but  which  he  witnessed  with  the  intellectual  eye.  He 
created  their  passions,  their  loves,  their  landscape  ;  nor 
did  he  fail  to  create  in  them  the  spirit  and  life,  the 
beauty  and  the  pity,  as  well  as  the  ruthlessness  and 


William  Morris  237 

cruelty,  of  the  centuries  in  which  he  dwelt.  What 
difference  there  is  between  such  old  stories,  and  Morris's 
invented  representations  of  them,  is  not  made  by  the 
distance  of  his  time  from  them — he  was  borne  back- 
ward into  the  period  and  was  a  part  of  its  life — ^but  by 
his  individuality  working  within  his  own  image  of  the 
time.  They  were  old  by  imaginative  transference  of 
himself  into  another  age,  but  in  themselves  they  were 
underived  from  any  previous  poet ;  as  original  as  a 
new  island  in  the  seas.  This  gives  him  even  in  this 
early  work,  his  specialised  place  as  a  poet.  There  are 
two  little  fragments  of  verse  in  The  Hollow  Land,  the 
first  of  which  is  like  Melchisedek — without  beginning 
of  descent  or  end  of  days — so  uncaused  and  original  it 
is ;  and  the  second,  though  a  piece  of  a  Christmas 
carol,  especially  in  the  gorgeous  colouring  of  it,  unlike 
even  the  earliest  carols. 

This  is  the  first,  and  we  cannot  miss  its  curious 
charm,  its  remoteness,  its  mystery  of  feeling  and  of 
landscape. 

Christ  keep  the  Hollow  Land 

All  the  summer  tide  ; 
Still  we  cannot  understand 

Where  the  waters  glide. 

Only  dimly  seeing  them 

Coldly  slipping  through 
Many  green-lipped  cavern  mouths 

Where  the  hills  are  blue. 

And  this,  which  is  better,  is  the  fragment  of  a  carol 


238  Fovjr  Victorian  Poets 

sung  in  the  snow  by  a  sentinel  under  Queen  Swanhilda's 
castle — 

Queen  Mary's  crown  was  gold, 

King  Joseph's  crown  was  red, 
But  Jesus'  crown  was  diamond. 

That  lit  up  all  the  bed 

Mariae  Virginis. 

Ships  sail  through  the  Heaven 

With  red  banners  dress 'd, 
Carrying  the  planets  seven 

To  see  the  white  breast 
Mariae  Virginis. 

A  haunting  note  is  in  that  little  thing.  It  comes 
from  the  world  beyond  the  weariness  of  this  earth  ;  half 
of  mediaeval  mysticism,  half  of  fairyland. 

Of  course,  being  written  by  a  youth  of  twenty-two 
years,  these  early  poems,  and  those  of  the  Defence  of 
Guenevere^  are  thin,  not  well-knit  together.  They 
begin  things  which  are  not  ended;  they  run  away 
from  the  subject — Morris  was  never  concise — they  have 
the  faults-  of  over-swift  production.  There  is  scarcely 
any  true  composition,  sustained  thought,  or  arrange- 
ment. They  flow  like  a  quick  torrent  over  broken 
rocks.  But  they  are  alive  with  a  new  man  from  end 
to  end  ;  they  break  into  a  novel  world  ;  in  them  imag- 
ination kindles  itself  by  its  own  breath  into  livelier 
flame  ;  their  humanity  is  that  of  one  man — particular, 
not  universal — but  it  is  deep.  The  passions  are  strong 
in  them,  natural,  vivid  ;  they  are  those  of  Morris,  their 


'William  Morris  239 

web  drawn  out  of  and  coloured  by  his  youth — imag- 
ined, not  experienced — but  they  want  neither  vitality 
nor  intensity. 

What  I  have  said  is  to  be  applied  to  the  larger  num- 
ber of  poems  in  the  Defence  of  Guenevere.  That  book 
may  be  divided  into  three  parts— the  poems  which  con- 
cern the  Arthurian  legend ;  those  which  belong  to  a 
thirteenth  or  fourteenth  century  cycle  of  events ;  and 
those  lyrics  and  lyrical  pieces  which  belong  to  no  cen- 
tury of  earth,  but  are  sent  down  to  us  out  of  the  woods 
and  lands  beyond  the  world. 

They  are  also  a  series  of  experiments,  made  by  a 
young  eagle  flushing  his  wings.  Many  different 
metres  are  chosen  and  worked.  A  rude  dramatic 
form,  imitative  of  the  miracle  plays,  is  used.  One 
piece  is  almost  a  short  drama.  Narrative  poetry  is 
tried,  but  fails  to  realise  itself.  It  is  strange  that  he 
did  not  now  approach  success  in  that  form  of  poetry  of 
which  he  made  so  great  a  success.  There  is  a  little 
fairy-folk-piece  which  stands  alone.  Ballad  poetry 
also  laid  its  hand  upon  him,  and  he  tries  his  prentice 
hand  upon  it  in  this  book.  Moreover,  he  recreated 
here  certain  lyric  forms  with  a  refrain  to  them  which 
English  poetry  had  not  seen  for  a  long  time.  The 
book  may  be  called  a  book  of  experiments.  I,ike  a 
young  man  who  has  many  lighter  loves  before  he 
settles  down  into  the  love  of  his  life,  as  Romeo  had  be- 
fore he  met  Juliet,  so  Morris  tried  many  forms  of  poetry 
before  he  settled  down  into  narrative  poetry. 


240  Ko\jr  "Victorian  Poets 

Of  the  poems  suggested  by  Malory,  the  finest  is  said 
to  be  King  Arthur's  Tomb.  It  suffers  greatly,  and  the 
others  suffer  more,  from  ill-composition,  but  the  un- 
wearied succession  of  pictures  and  passions  fitted  to 
each  other,  kindles,  and  deepens  the  kindling  of  our 
pleasurable  pain,  as  we  read  of  the  riding  of  Lancelot 
to  his  last  tryst  with  Guenevere,  and  of  all  the  memo- 
ries of  his  past  love  with  which  he  fills  his  ride  ;  and 
then  of  Guenevere  dreaming  into  repentance  and 
prayer,  and  of  her  last  speech  to  him  in  which  she 
saves  his  soul.  A  few  modem  touches  in  the  descrip- 
tions are  not  enough  to  dull  the  strong  impression  we 
receive  of  a  similar  temper  of  mind  in  Morris  to  that 
which  Malory  had  when  he  wrote  his  book — and  which 
Tennyson  had  not.  The  remoteness  of  Tennyson's 
temper  from  Malory's  is  almost  wonderful ;  and  at 
every  point  of  life  it  clashes  with  Malory.  But  the 
chief  difference  between  Morris  and  Malory  is  not  in 
the  temper  of  their  mind,  but  that  Malory  tells  this 
last  story  of  Lancelot  and  Guenevere  with  a  great  sim- 
plicity of  feeling  and  description  ;  and  Morris,  like  a 
young  man,  and  like  one  who  loved — as  he  always 
loved — full  ornament  and  minute  detail,  fills  his  story 
with  an  opiulence  of  description,  and  with  a  complexity 
of  feelings,  which,  as  they  are  richly  coloured  with  im- 
agery let  loose  to  wander  where  it  will,  we  pardon  with 
pleasure.  Copiousness,  when  it  is  imaginative,  is  too 
precious  a  thing  to  be  blamed. 

Of  the  Arthurian   poems  this  made  the  most  im- 


"William  Morris  241 

pression,  but  for  my  part,  Galahad,  a  Christmas  Mystery^ 
pleases  me  more.  It  has  a  wilder,  a  more  mystic 
charm ;  the  conception  of  Galahad  is  original,  not  so 
finished  as  Tennyson's,  but  less  frigid,  more  human ; 
and  when  the  Sangreal  comes,  and  the  supernatural 
world  of  angels  and  saints  crowds  round  Galahad  to 
console  him,  the  conception,  the  sentiment,  the  land- 
scape, and  the  celestial  spirituality,  are  not  only  in  full 
harmony  with  romantic  mediaevalism  but  with  some- 
thing of  that  far-off  Celtic  spirit  out  of  which  the  first 
form  of  the  Greal  legend  grew. 

It  is  original  and  human,  but  not  mediaeval,  to  make 
Galahad  regret  that  when  he  rides  alone  he  had  no 
woman  (like  I/ancelot  or  Palomydes)  to  think  of,  and 
thereby  to  fill  the  lonely  forest  paths  with  memories 
and  hopes ;  no  sweet  meetings  or  partings  like  other 
men.  Nor  is  it  less  original  to  bring,  in  this  fashion, 
the  vision  of  Christ  to  console  him  : 


In  this  way  I, 
With  sleepy  face  bent  to  the  chapel  floor, 

Kept  musing  half  asleep,  till  suddenly 
A  sharp  bell  rang  from  close  beside  the  door, 

And  I  leapt  up  when  something  pass'd  me  by, 
Shrill  ringing  going  with  it ;  still  half  blind 

I  stagger'd  after  ;  a  great  sense  of  awe 
At  every  step  kept  gathering  on  my  mind, 

Thereat  I  have  no  marvel,  for  I  saw 
One  sitting  on  the  altar  as  a  throne. 

Whose  face  no  man  could  say  he  did  not  know. 
And  though  the  bell  still  rang,  he  sat  alone, 

With  raiment  half  blood  red,  and  half  white  as  snow, 

16 


2  42  Four  Victorian  Poets 

who  tells  him  that  he  is  not  alone,  for  He  will  be  with 
him  always,  and  those  lovers  whose  happiness  he  re- 
grets, time  and  passion  will  weary  them,  but  he  shall 
never  be  weary.  *'  You  are  mine  forever."  When  the 
voice  ceases  the  women  of  heaven  come  to  arm  him — 
the  virgin  martyrs,  full  of  joy  for  him ;  Margaret  of 
Antioch,  Cecily,  I^ucy,  and  Katherine.  Henceforth, 
his  riding  will  be  graced  with  lovelier  visions  of  woman- 
hood than  ever  fled  before  the  eyes  of  I^ancelot.  The 
piece  breaks  off  abruptly,  but  its  beauty  of  the  other 
world,  the  world  within  this  world  of  ours  where  the 
mystic  visions  rise  and  fall,  is  .great ;  nor  is  the  human 
pleasure  or  sorrow  in  that  dream-fed  region  less  fair 
and  true  than  in  this  worl6.  of  ours,  which  we  are  so 
amusing  as  to  call  real.  As  to  the  landscape  of  this 
piece — the  lonely  chapel,  the  snow  on  the  ground,  the 
wet  fern  and  weeds  of  the  wood,  the  winter  wind,  the 
bell  shrilling  through  the  '.'  forest  deep,"  and  the  light 
of  the  angels  streaming  over  the  snow — it  fits  the  con- 
ception, the  mysticism,  the  mediaeval  and  spiritual 
romance  of  the  time,  as  a  glove  fits  the  hand. 

A  Good  Knight  in  Prison  \s>  a  piece  of  true  romance, 
done  in  a  romantic  manner  of  his  own,  full  of  pictures 
in  fine  colour,  of  tender  humanity,  and  in  a  charming 
melody.  At  the  end  of  it,  midst  of  the  tender  com- 
plaint of  the  knight  and  his  memories — for  the  intro- 
ducing of  pictorial  memories  into  the  soliloquies  of  his 
warriors  is  one  of  the  methods  Morris  uses  to  enliven 


'William  Morris  243 

his  poems — I^ancelot,  with  a  fine  stirring  and  clamour 
of  the  verse,  breaks  into  the  castle  and  delivers  him. 
No  English  poet  had  ever  done  this  kind  of  thing  be- 
fore, and  none  have  done  it  since. 

In  such  a  world  was  Morris  at  home  when  he  was 
twenty-five — a  soul  born  and  bred  in  the  fourteenth 
century,  but  forced  to  eat  and  drink  and  sleep  in  the 
nineteenth.  These  poems,  while  we  think  of  their 
want  of  finish,  their  abruptness  of  thought,  their  hud- 
dled imagery  and  disconnected  trains  of  feeling,  may 
not  appear  to  be  worth  dwelling  on  so  long  ;  but  their 
matter  is  new  in  poetry,  so  is  their  manner,  and  in  both 
the  imagination  is  glowing  with  fresh  fire.  That  is 
the  great  quality,  and  where  that  is,  it  overtops  all 
elaborate  skill  in  the  technic  of  poetry  and  lifts  its 
maker  into  a  far  loftier  chair  than  all  these  excellent 
masters  of  words  and  rhyme  and  metrical  arrange- 
ments occupy,  who  pour  over  us  floods  of  artistic  verse 
without  orignality,  with  fancy,  with  science,  but  not 
with  imagination. 

Of  the  second  group  of  poems,  originating  from  his 
love  of  Froissart,  Sir  Peter  Harpdon^s  End  is  the  most 
powerful — a  kind  of  dramatic  romance  well  but  boy- 
ishly realised  ;  but  also  so  full  of  a  crude  mannerism, 
neither  mediaeval  nor  modern,  of  strange  and  strained 
phrases,  that  on  the  whole  it  is  disagreeable.  The 
blank  verse  is  also  as  mannered  and  abrupt  as  the 
phraseology.  The  characters  speak,  even  to  the  Lady 
Alice,  on  stilts ;  and  we  long  for  them  to  descend  to 


2  44  Fo\ir  Victorian  Poets 

that  ordinary  English  speech  Morris  uses  afterwards  so 
well.  The  Little  Tower ^  with  its  desperate  ride  through 
the  flooded  lands ;  the  Riding  Together,  banners  and 
spears  afloat  in  the  air  in  the  swiftness  of  the  ride  ;  its 
noise  and  clash  of  war  when  the  Christian  band  meet 
the  Pagan  host,  and  the  tragic  misery  of  the  end ; 
Geffray  Teste  Noire,  with  the  wayside  episode  of  the 
slain  knight  and  his  lady  unburied  in  the  wood ;  The 
Haystack  in  the  Floods  with  its  passionate  realism,  its 
close  touch  on  the  brutality  of  the  times,  even  to  their 
savage  ruthlessness  to  women,  and  yet  the  ineffable 
pity  of  the  tale  ;  Shameful  Death,  better  told  and  com- 
posed than  the  others,  a  record  of  cruel,  then  of  just, 
vengeance — these  are  living  records,  poignantly  keen, 
of  the  miseries  of  the  mercenary  wars,  that  other  side 
of  the  shield  of  chivalry.  I  only  mention  The  Judg- 
meiit  of  God,  because  it  smacks  of  Browning — the  only 
Morris  poem  which  clearly  comes  near  to  Browning's 
banner.  And  I  mention  this  because  Morris  himself 
was  accustomed  to  say  that  if  his  poems  owed  a  debt 
to  any  one,  they  owed  it  to  Browning. 

All  these  are  of  his  youth,  and  share  in  the  over- 
quaintness,  the  ill-conception,  and  the  long-windedness 
of  youth,  but  they  are  true  to  his  own  impassioned 
temper,  alive  with  colour  and  the  tumult  of  war,  savage 
in  their  realism,  clear-eyed  in  their  imagination.  The 
most  charming,  however,  of  the  poems,  is  Rapunzel^ 
which  cannot  be  said  to  belong  to  any  of  these  three 
groups.    It  stands  alone,  drawn  out  from  the  Arthuriau 


William  Morris  24S 

or  mediaeval  story,  and,  as  Morris  has  conceived  it, 
not  wholly  outside  of  the  actual  world.  The  subject 
was  given  him  in  the  old  folk-talk  of  the  Solitary 
Tower,  the  Princess  who  dwells  alone  in  it,  and  who 
lets  down  her  golden  hair  for  the  witch  to  climb  up  by, 
and  the  Prince  who  delivers  her.  Morris  has  mediaeval- 
ised  the  old  tale.  Its  Greek  connexion  he  has  entirely 
ignored,  and  its  mythical  elements.  It  is  remade 
according  to  Morris ;  and  nowhere,  not  even  in  The 
Earthly  Paradise,  has  he  remade  a  story  more  delight- 
fully. He  has  added  enough  reality  to  it  to  take  it  out 
of  fairyland,  and  yet  left  round  it  the  fairy  atmosphere. 
The  Prince  and  the  Princess  are  quite  human,  and 
their  love  passages  full  of  delicate  charm.  The  form  of 
the  poem  is  quaint  and  fanciful,  but  clear,  connected,  and 
well  concluded.  And  the  incidents,  the  conversation, 
the  landscape  are  invented  and  varied  with  grace  and 
change,  and  so  is  the  verse.  All  fit  together,  and 
over  it  youthful  love,  like  a  sunny  atmosphere  in  early 
spring,  breathes  unity  and  enchantment.  The  soul  of 
Morris,  in  his  dreaming  youth,  is  there. 

The  third  type  of  poems  in  this  volume  is  quite  dis- 
tinct from  the  rest.  They  are  not  of  this  world  at  all, 
but,  even  in  their  immaturity,  prophetic  of  the  air  and 
light  and  landscape  of  The  Wood  Beyond  the  World,  y 
out  of  whose  star-begotten  creatures  he  made  a  prose 
romance.  In  this  far  other- world,  full  of  magic  and 
fairy,  he  lived  in  the  last  years  of  his  life,  when  the 
fourteenth  century,  and  the  Greek  life  in  its  mediaeval 


246  Four  Victorian  Poets 

dress,  and  the  early  Teutonic  communities  such  as  lie 
painted  in  The  House  of  the  Wolfings  and  The  Roots  of 
the  Mountains,  and  even  the  Norse  Saga- land  and  life, 
and  the  future  world  of  a  regenerated  humanity — 
having  been  long  dwelt  in,  were  finally  left  behind  by 
this  spiritual  wanderer  through  many  times  and  na- 
tions ;  the  Ulysses  of  the  soul,  who,  working  and 
walking  among  us,  yet  never  truly  lived  save  far  away 
from  us,  in  a  hundred  rovings  of  imagination.  This 
\  last  country  he  lived  in  was  described  in  many  tales — 
in  The  Glittering  Plain,  The  Wood  Beyond  the  World, 
The  Well  at  the  World's  End — and  last  of  all,  just  be- 
fore he  died,  in  that  most  delightful  book.  The  Sun- 
dering Flood,  a  very  flower  of  imagination,  yet  so  real 
that  we  believe,  as  we  read,  in  every  word  of  it.  This 
is  a  country  of  great  rivers,  hewing  their  way  from  the 
mountains  through  deep  gorges  to  the  plains,  of  deep 
woods,  and  silver  lakes,  and  green  sea  waves,  and 
many-visaged  weather,  and  cities  by  the  sea,  and  tall 
castles,  and  chajBfering  towns  where  knights  and 
mechants  meet,  of  farms,  and  of  forest  land  where 
robber  bands  are  slain  and  fair  women  wander  and 
love,  and  love  is  long  and  full ;  where  in  the  woods  are 
green-clad  women  whose  life  is  not  human  but  whose 
affections  are,  and  wizards  and  witches,  good  and  bad, 
and  magic  and  immortal  warriors,  and  all  the  wonders 
of  fairy — a  lovely  land  to  live  in,  far  away  from  our 
sordid  ugliness ;  far  away  even  from  the  earth  itself, 
even  in  its  social  regeneration — a  life  such  as  may,  for 


"William  Morris  247 

all  we  know,  be  lived  in  some  happier  planet  than  ours, 
hidden  in  some  galaxy  in  space,  but  human  to  the  core. 
Most  men,  when  they  write  tales  of  fairy,  of  a  world 
imagined,  make  their  men  and  women  unlike  ourselves, 
not  quite  human.  But  Morris,  in  all  these  tales,  rests 
his  story  on  the  universal  passions  and  ways  of  natural 
humanity — humanity,  it  is  true,  freed  from  the  con- 
ventions of  either  society  or  morality,  but  all  the  more 
natural  and  real  for  that  freedom.  The  world  in  which 
we  live,  while  we  read,  is  not  our  world,  but  the  men 
and  women  are  ourselves  as  we  are  in  the  secret  life 
within  where  we  ignore  or  despise  the  rules  and 
maxims  of  society. 

I  know  nothing  more  refreshing,  in  this  overladen 
world,  and  when  life,  with  its  relentless  goad,  drives 
us  on  to  so  many  vain  labours  and  to  so  many  duties 
which  are  not  duties  but  conventions — to  take  out  one 
of  these  books,  and  slip  out  of  it  all,  like  some  released 
and  happy  spirit,  into  a  natural  world.  This  releasing 
power  is  one  of  Morris's  best  contributions  to  the  good 
and  consolation  of  man.  And  the  power  to  create  such 
a  world,  under  the  terrible  pressure  of  our  unnatural 
commonplace,  is  perhaps  the  finest  capacity  of  his 
genius. 

It  is  in  the  air  of  this  world  of  dream,  such  as  Keats 
lived  in  when  he  saw  the 


magic  casements  opening  on  the  foam 
Of  perilous  seas  in  fairy  lands  forlorn, 


/ 


248  Four  Victorian  Poets 

that  certain  poems  in  this  early  book  were  composed  ; 
and  it  is  characteristic  of  the  consistency  and  continuity 
of  the  elements  of  the  soul  of  Morris  that  he  should 
-recur  at  the  end  of  his  life,  in  romantic  prose,  to  the 
regions  of  which  he  had  written,  when  he  was  young, 
in  romantic  poetry.  The  very  titles  of  these  poems 
take  us  into  the  atmosphere  of  dreaming  phantasy  in 
which  they  were  conceived —  The  Sailing  of  the  Sword^ 
The  Blue  Closet^  The  Tune  of  Seven  Towers^  Two  Red 
Roses  Across  the  Moon — nor  is  the  fine,  half-languid, 
half-fiery  loving  of  The  Praise  of  my  Lady,  with  its 
lyatin  refrain,  outside  of  the  fairy  world  of  the  later 
romances,  where  true  and  natural  passion,  in  admira- 
tion of  the  outward  and  inward  beauty  love  spiritu- 
alises, plays  so  great  a  part. 

Only  one  poem  in  the  book,  in  its  tragic  passion,  its 
dreadful  remorse  and  horror,  as  well  as  in  the  unex- 
plained mystery  of  its  crime  of  love  or  jealousy,  belongs 
not  only  to  mediaeval  times,  but  to  all  times.  The 
Wind  is  its  title.  It  might  be  invented  by  a  modern 
poet,  and  it  is  touched  here  and  there  by  modern 
thoughts.  Its  melody  and  rhythm  are  different  from 
all  the  rest,  better  managed,  and  of  a  singular  charm. 
And  the  telling  of  the  tale  and  the  scenery  of  it  were 
done  in  an  artist  hour. 

Only  one  poem  in  the  whole  book  has  quite  a 
modem  air,  and  moves  in  a  lovely  and  wildering 
melody,  with  an  involved  overlapping  of  thought,  and 
of  changing  feelings  echoed  by  the  metrical  changes, 


"William  Morris  249 

— most  like  a  fugue,  and  penetrated  throughout  with 
a  tremulous  passion  of  music.  It  is  written,  in  spite 
of  its  two  curious  faults,  with  the  grace  of  a  matured 
artist,  and  yet  was  one  of  his  earliest  pieces,  being 
published  in  the  Oxford  and  Cambndge  Magazine, 
Summer  Dawn  is  its  name,  and  I  quote  it — 

Pray  but  one  prayer  for  me  'twixt  thy  closed  lips, 
Think  but  one  thought  of  me  up  in  the  stars. 

The  summer  night  waneth,  the  morning  light  slips, 
Faint  and  grey  'twixt  the  leaves  of  the  aspen,  betwixt 
the  cloud-bars, 

That  are  patiently  waiting  there  for  the  dawn  : 
Patient  and  colourless,  though  Heaven's  gold 

Waits  to  float  through  them  along  with  the  Sun. 

Far  out  in  the  meadows,  above  the  young  corn, 
The  heavy  elms  wait,  and  restless  and  cold 

The  uneasy  wind  rises  ;  the  roses  are  dun  ; 

Through  the  long  twilight  they  pray  for  the  dawn, 

Round  the  lone  house  in  the  midst  of  the  corn. 
Speak  but  one  word  to  me  over  the  com, 
Over  the  tender,  bow'd  locks  of  the  com. 

That  concludes  what  I  have  to  say  about  this  first 
book.  I  have  dwelt  on  it  at  perhaps  too  great  length. 
But  it  is  not  so  well  known  as  the  poems  which  followed 
it,  and  a  great  interest  gathers  round  the  youthful 
work  of  one  who  proved  so  well  that  he  had  that  en- 
during power  which  ripens  and  matures  into  noble 
fruitage.  There  is  a  delicate  exquisiteness  of  feeling, 
as  of  that  which  may  quickly  perish  ;  an  apartness  of 
joy  such  as  is  never  felt  again  ;  an  appealing  hope  and 
promise ;  all  the  sweetness  and  courage  of  bold  attempt, 


1 

250  Fo-ur  "Victorian  Poets 

in  the  first  flowers  and  leaves  of  early  spring,  which 
may  well  image  the  first  poems  of  genius.  Their 
very  incompleteness  suggests  completeness,  prophe- 
sies the  fulness  of  summer,  and  ^irresistibly  attacks  the 
imagination. 

When  we  next  meet  Morris  in  print,  he  has  ceased 
to  be  immature  and  unfinished.  He  has  found  out 
clearly  what  he  can  best  do.  Spring  is  over  ;  summer 
has  come,  and  indeed  he  brought  the  summer  into  nar- 
rative poetry  ;  for  since  Chaucer  no  one,  not  Dryden, 
not  Keats,  had  re-attained  in  England  the  Chaucerian 
charm,  the  gliding  sentiment,  the  fluidity  of  narrative 
and  of  verse,  in  narrative  poetry,  till  Morris  came. 
Scott  may  be  instanced,  but  Scott's  narrative  work  in 
verse  diminished  in  excellence  and  in  quantity  as  he 
went  on.  Morris  increased  his  productiveness,  and  its 
excellence  was  fully  supported,  till  he,  like  Scott, 
gave  up  narrative  poetry  and  turned  to  prose.  Indeed, 
no  poet  is  likely  to  go  on  writing  narrative  poetry  all 
his  life.  For  poetry  seeks  naturally  for  concentration, 
intensity,  conciseness  of  thought,  action,  and  emotion 
brought  to  a  burning  centre — elements  which,  intro- 
duced continually  into  narrative  poetry,  would  undo 
the  very  essence  of  that  kind  of  poetr5^  When  people 
complain  of  the  flowing  looseness  of  Morris's  tales,  of 
their  minute  and  lingering  detail,  of  their  expansive- 
ness,  they  are  complaining  of  things  which  actually 
make  the  essence  of  narrative  poetry.  What  do  they 
want  ?    Can  they  not  understand  that  they  must  not 


William  Morris  251 

have  the  excellences  of  the  lyric  in  a  narrative  poem, 
and  that  to  introduce  them  would  be  wholly  out  of 
place — would,  indeed,  destroy  the  elements  of  poetic 
narrative  ?  Each  form  of  poetry  has  its  own  customs, 
laws,  and  necessities,  its  own  times,  places,  and  moods 
of  mind  in  which  it  ought  to  be  read.  Narrative 
poetry  is  not  to  be  read  in  the  great  crises  of  life  and 
thought,  but  as  Omar  wished  to  read — 

A  book  of  Verses  underneath  the  Bough, 
A  Jug  of  Wine,  a  Loaf  of  Bread,  and  Thou 

Beside  me  singing  in  the  wilderness — 
Oh,  Wilderness  were  Paradise  enow. 

Chaucer  was  in  this  the  master  of  Morris,  and  when 
Morris  sent  forth  The  Earthly  Paradise  completed,  he 
enshrined  in  an  epilogue  the  honour  he  gave  to  his 
master  in  a  set  of  verses  full  of  tenderness  ;  and  reveal- 
ing, with  that  strange  unreserve  which  many  poets 
have  in  verse  while  they  are  reserved  in  life,  the  verit- 
able temper  of  his  soul  while  he  was  yet  quite  young, 
while  poetry  was  dear  to  him,  and  life  a  dream  of  love 
and  joy,  with  the  darkness  of  death  beyond  to  make 
love  and  joy  too  dear  for  happiness  ;  while  he  was  yet 
only  the  idle  singer  of  an  empty  day  : 

"Children  we  twain  are,  saith  he,  late  made  wise 
In  love,  but  in  all  else  most  childish  still, 
And  seeking  still  the  pleasure  of  our  eyes. 
And  what  our  ears  with  sweetest  sound  may  fill  ; 
Not  fearing  lyove,  lest  these  things  he  should  kill ; 
Howe'er  his  pain  by  pleasure  doth  he  lay. 
Making  a  strange  tale  of  an  empty  day. 


252  Fo\ir  Victorian  Poets 

"  Death  have  we  hated,  knowing  not  what  it  meant ; 
Life  have  we  loved,  through  green  leaf  and  through  sere, 
Though  still  the  less  we  knew  of  its  intent : 
The  Earth  and  Heaven  through  countless  year  on  year, 
Slow  changing,  were  to  us  but  curtains  fair, 
Hung  round  about  a  little  room,  where  play 
Weeping  and  laughter  of  man's  empty  day. 

*•  Then  let  the  others  go  !  and  if  indeed 
In  some  old  garden  thou  and  I  have  wrought, 
And  made  fresh  flowers  spring  up  from  hoarded  seed. 
And  fragrance  of  old  days  and  deeds  have  brought 
Back  to  folk  weary  ;  all  was  not  for  nought. 
No  little  part  it  was  for  me  to  play — 
The  idle  singer  of  an  empty  day." 

He  began  this  narrative  poetry  while  he  was  still  at 
the  University,  and  he  began  it  with  his  usual  impetu- 
osity and  plenitude.  He  projected  and  did  a  great 
part  of  a  poem  on  the  tale  of  Troy — on  that  part  of  the 
tale  which,  after  the  events  of  the  Iliad ^  was  recorded 
in  the  lost  Greek  epics,  and  which  stirred  the  mediaeval 
and  romantic  poets  into  making  the  many  poems  that 
constitute  the  Cycle  of  Troy.  In  that  cycle  the  Greek 
tales  are  told  in  the  mediaeval  and  romantic  manner 
and  with  mediaeval  surroundings  and  beliefs ;  the 
landscapes,  buildings,  towns,  furniture,  armour,  war- 
riors, and  women,  are  all  mediaeval.  That  was  just 
what  Morris  wanted,  and  he,  of  set  purpose,  mediaeval- 
ised  (with  the  inevitable  modernism  in  natural  descrip- 
tion, and  in  sentiment)  his  Greek  stories  both  in  Jason 
and  in  The  Earthly  Paradise,  The  objection  then, 
that  his  Greek  stories  are  not  Greek  in  character,  falls 


"William  Morris  253 

to  the  ground.  He  did  not,  any  more  than  Keats,  in- 
tend them  to  be  classical,  but  romantic ;  and  he  took 
pains  in  the  story  of  The  Wanderers  to  invent  for  this 
purpose  a  Greek  colony  in  some  far  seas,  the  dwellers 
in  which,  though  descended  from  the  Greeks,  had  lived 
on  into  the  fourteenth  century,  and,  like  the  late  Greeks 
of  Byzantium,  held  their  old  traditions  in  very  different 
forms  from  those  they  had  received  in  ancient  Greece. 
They  are  supposed  to  tell  their  tales  in  mediaeval  fash- 
ion. This  view  is  excellently  laboured  by  Mr.  Mackail 
in  his  Life  of  Morris^  and  Morris  himself  maintained  it. 
fason  is  written  in  that  fashion.  The  Story  of  the 
Golden  Fleece  was  to  have  been  one  of  the  stories  of  The 
Earthly  Paradise^  but  it  enlarged  under  his  hand  till  it 
became  a  separate  book.  Published  in  1867,  it  made 
him  at  once  famous,  and  established  him  as  a  poet. 
That  the  English  people,  who  hate  long  things ;  that 
the  lovers  of  poetry,  who  were  then  enamoured  of  the 
idyll  and  brief  dramatic  lyrics,  should  read  it  all,  was 
a  triumph  of  good  story-telling.  It  was  something 
that  the  story  was  well  known.  It  was  something 
more  that  into  the  known  outlines  of  the  story  many 
freshly-invented  episodes  were  introduced,  so  that  the 
reader,  in  surprise  and  pleasure,  was  lured  on  by  rapid 
incident.  But  these  things  do  not  fully  account  for  the 
favour  with  which  it  was  read  from  end  to  end.  It 
was,  first  of  all,  excellent  narrative,  eminently  clear, 
flowing,  well  knit  together,  naturally  wrought.  It 
never  left  its  own  level,    and  it  preserved  its   own 


2  54  Fo\jr  Victorian  Poets 

atmosphere  from  the  beginning  to  the  close.  Jason  is 
foremost  in  it ;  we  never  leave  his  side.  The  unity  of 
the  narrative  is  therefore  unbroken.  Boy,  youth,  man, 
adventurer,  warrior,  lover,  wanderer,  king,  we  follow 
him  till  weariness  comes  on  his  maturity  and  success, 
and  he  is  faithless  to  love  and  honour.  He  had  no 
pity,  no  shame ;  he  felt  no  Nemesis  press  upon  him. 
Vengeance,  not  only  of  Medea,  descends  on  him ;  the 
house  of  life  falls  in  ruins,  and  the  great  warrior,  in 
his  exhausted  sorrow,  in  grey  apathy,  dies  ignobly  in 
his  sleep,  half-dead  before  he  dies.  This  irony  of  life, 
this  image  of  the  victory  of  decay,  of  vanity,  broods 
over  the  whole  book.  The  futility  of  human  endeav- 
\  our  at  the  last  was  always  more  deep  than  it  should 
have  been  in  the  mind  of  Morris.  It  lies  beneath 
many  other  stories  ;  it  has  sunk  deep  into  The  Earthly 
Paradise ;  it  is  the  dominant  note  in  Jason.  It  is  hu- 
man enough ;  and  it  deepens  all  the  other  human 
elements  in  the  story.  The  Greeks,  no  doubt,  felt  it 
profoundly  in  the  tale,  but  they  could  not  have  felt 
it  more  profoundly  than  Morris. 

Naturally,  as  it  paints  the  whole  of  a  man's  career 
the  poem  is  close  to  humanity.  Morris  never  wanted 
humanity,  even  in  his  dream-romances.  But  here  he 
has  got  out  of  the  vagueness  and  inexperience  of  his 
i^  earlier  work  into  the  real  stuff  of  mankind  ;  out  of  par- 
ticular forms  of  feeling  at  moments  of  event,  into  the 
universal  business  and  passion  of  the  world  of  men. 
And  weight  and  dignity  now  enter  into  his  work,  nor 


William  Morris  255 

did  they  ever  leave  it.  In  passion,  in  thought,  he 
rarely  went  deep  in  the  tales,  but  when  he  did,  he  wrote 
with  a  reality  to  which  enough  credit  has  not  been 
given.  The  most  real  piece  of  human  nature  under  the 
power  of  the  passions — a  true  piece  of  fine  tragedy, 
where  many  passions  mingle  threads  of  beauty  and 
terror,  ''  dyed  with  the  hues  of  earthquake  and  eclipse  " 
— is  contained  in  the  last  book  of  Jason  after  the  story 
of  The  Golden  Fleece  is  ended.  It  paints  the  desire  of 
change  in  a  mature  man ;  that  crisis  when  the  worn 
pilgrim  of  life,  weary  of  good  and  evil,  desires  inno- 
cence and  freshness  and  the  dew  of  youth  in  a  woman 
to  renew  his  heart  upon,  and  seems,  in  such  a  love, 
to  taste  again  the  sweetness  of  youth.  It  paints  the 
passion  of  love  in  a  young  girl  for  the  man  who  em- 
bodies for  her  the  heroic.  It  paints  the  passions,  in  an 
experienced  woman,  of  jealousy,  hatred,  fierce  sorrow, 
un tameable  revenge,  wrath  at  betrayal  of  love— deep- 
ened by  passionate  memories,  intensified  by  conscious 
power,  contempt  of  weakness,  and  unmitigated  will. 
It  paints,  when  Medea  has  had  her  vengeance,  and 
left  Jason,  stripped  of  everything,  as  naked  as  a  wintry 
tree,  his  loneliness,  his  days  and  nights  of  misery,  till 
misery  devoured  itself  in  lapse  of  time.  It  tells  then 
how,  a  broken  man,  he  thought  of  active  life  again,  of 
new  adventure,  war,  and  kingship ;  how  as  he  thought 
of  it,  the  stem  of  Argo,  under  which  he  dreamed  and 
slept,  fell,  charged  with  the  irony  of  fate,  on  him  ;  and 
he  died,  not  in  the  ringing  ranks  of  battle,  but  on  the 


256  Fovir  Victorian  Poets 


1 


unfamed  edges  of  the  shore  and  sea,  by  a  fameless  j 
accident.  I 

That  Morris  felt  that  this  episode  was  most  tragic 
and  needed  his  finest  work,  most  human  and  needed 
his  most  imaginative  insight,  is  proved  by  his  invoca- 
tion at  its  beginning  to  his  master,  Chaucer,  for  his 
help.  The  verses  are  full  of  himself,  of  his  love  of 
nature,  of  his  love  of  the  old  times,  of  his  ideality  and 
his  delight  in  reality,  of  the  closeness  of  his  work  to 
things  and  men,  of  his  clear  vision  of  what  he  saw, 
and  of  his  power  to  shape  it  into  form. 

So  ends  the  winning  of  the  Golden  Fleece, 

So  ends  the  tale  of  that  sweet  rest  and  peace 

That  unto  Jason  and  his  love  befell ; 

Another  story  now  my  tongue  must  tell, 

And  tremble  in  the  telling.     Would  that  I 

Had  but  some  portion  of  that  mastery 

That  from  the  rose-hung  lanes  of  woody  Kent 

Through  these  five  hundred  years  such  songs  have  sent 

To  us,  who,  meshed  within  this  smoky  net 

Of  unrejoicing  labour,  love  them  yet, 

And  thou,  O  Master  ! — Yea,  my  Master  still, 

Whatever  feet  have  scaled  Parnassus'  hill, 

Since,  like  thy  measures,  clear,  and  sweet,  and  strong, 

Thames'  stream  scarce  fettered  bore  the  bream  along 

Unto  the  bastioned  bridge,  his  only  chain. 

O  Master,  pardon  me,  if  yet  in  vain 

Thou  art  my  Master,  and  I  fail  to  bring 

Before  men's  eyes  the  image  of  the  thing 

My  heart  is  filled  with  :  thou,  whose  dreamy  eyes 

Beheld  the  flush  to  Cressid's  cheeks  arise. 

When  Troilus  rode  up  the  praising  street. 

As  clearly  as  they  saw  thy  townsmen  meet 

Those  who  in  vineyards  of  Poictou  withstood 

The  glittering  horror  of  the  steel-topped  wood. 


William  Morris  257 

Jason  was  followed  in  1868-70  by  the  volumes  of 
The  Earthly  Paradise^  and  this  publication  confirmed 
and  increased  the  reputation  of  Morris.  The  Apology 
with  which  he  prefaced  the  book  expresses  the  temper 
of  mind  which,  while  he  wrote,  lay  underneath  the 
stories,  and  the  same  temper  appears  more  fully  in  the 
endings  and  introductions  to  the  tales. 

The  first  lines  of  the  Prologue  to  the  whole  book, 
the  story  of  The  Wanderers^  tell  where  the  tales  were 
supposed  to  be  written  and  by  whom.  They  were  de- 
livered in  an  island  dwelt  in  by  Ionian  Greeks  who 
had  been  driven  there  centuries  before,  and  who  re- 
tained their  ancient  worship,  language,  manners,  and 
traditions.  To  this  island,  after  many  wanderings, 
seafaring  men  from  Norway,  Swabia,  Brittany,  France, 
and  England  came  in  the  fourteenth  century,  were 
welcomed  by  the  Greeks,  and  lived  in  the  peace  of 
their  old  age.  And  the  time  was  in  the  latter  half  of 
the  century  when  Chaucer  was  alive.  Morris  dwells 
on  the  date. 


Forget  six  counties  overhung  with  smoke, 
Forget  the  snorting  steam  and  piston -stroke, 
Forget  the  spreading  of  the  hideous  town  ; 
Think  rather  of  the  pack-horse  on  the  down, 
And  dream  of  London,  small,  and  white,  and  clean, 
The  clear  Thames  bordered  by  its  gardens  green  ; 
Think,  that  below  bridge  the  green  lapping  waves 
Smite  some  few  keels  that  bear  Levantine  staves. 
Cut  from  the  yew-wood  on  the  bumt-up  hill, 
And  painted  jars  that  Greek  hands  toiled  to  fill, 
And  treasured  scanty  spice  from  some  far  sea, 

17 


258  Koxir  Victorian  Poets 

Florence  gold  cloth,  and  Ypres  napery, 

And  cloth  of  Bruges,  and  hogsheads  of  Guienne  ; 

While  nigh  the  thronged  wharf  Geoffrey  Chaucer's  pen 

Moves  over  bills  of  lading — mid  such  times 

Shall  dwell  the  hollow  puppets  of  my  rhymes. 


i 


Having  thus  brought  together,  in  an  admirable  frame- 
work, the  old  Greek  world  and  the  fourteenth  century, 
the  Greeks  tell  their  ancient  tales  and  the  Wanderers 
theirs,  meeting  twice  a  month  in  the  great  Hall  of  the 
Island  State,  for  a  year,  twenty-four  tales  in  all ;  and  a 
marvellous  piece  of  opulent  inventiveness  is  the  book. 
Yes,  the  first  thing  to  say  of  the  narrative  poetry  of 
Morris  is  that  it  is  characterised  by  unfailing  invention. 
The  main  events  were  marked  down  for  him  in  the 
original  tales,  but  he  filled  up  the  outlines  of  each  with 
a  wealth  of  incidents,  descriptions,  and  characterisation, 
to  the  inventiveness  of  which  I  know  no  parallel 
in  modern  story-telling  poetry.  Take  the  first  book 
of  Jason.  The  boy  is  entrusted  to  Cheiron,  the 
Centaur,  to  be  educated.  He  meets  Juno  when  he  is 
grown  up,  and  is  sent  back  to  take  up  his  duty  and  his 
fate.  That  is  the  slight  outline,  but  it  is  filled  up  with 
such  a  host  of  small  events,  all  bearing  on  his  future, 
and  with  so  delightful  a  sketch  of  the  Centaur's  life 
with  Jason,  seen  so  clearly  and  told  so  connectedly  that 
the  book,  which  runs  to  several  hundred  lines,  is  a 
self-rounded,  tale  which  would  enchant  a  summer 
night.  Then,  again,  the  great  adventures  of  the  story 
were  easy  to  make  interesting,  but  it  was  a  bold  thing 


William  Morris  259 

to  take  Argo  and  his  crew  right  across  from  the  Black 
Sea,  through  the  wastes  of  Russia,  to  the  northern 
ocean  ;  and  yet  this  dreary  voyage  is  made  interesting 
enough  for  reading  by  an  invented  series  of  strange 
adventures  with  strange  folk,  and  by  vivid  descriptions 
of  the  forests,  the  rivers,  and  the  winter.  Even  the 
crew  itself  have  no  weariness  of  life.  The  buoyancy  of 
Morris  supports  them  with  his  own  vitality.  And  the 
greater  adventures  of  the  tale,  in  themselves  so  exiting, 
are  embroidered,  illuminated,  like  the  background  of  a 
tapestry,  or  the  pages  of  a  missal,  with  hundreds  of 
small  and  delicate  inventions.  There  is  not  an  inch  of 
the  surface  of  the  story  which  is  not  filled  with  orna- 
ment as  a  summer  meadow  is  with  flowers,  and  none 
of  it  is  apart  from  the  tale.  It  is  kept  down  to  its  due 
proportions.  It  enriches,  it  does  not  minimise  the  in- 
terest. All  this  is  true  of  the  various  poems  of  The 
Earthly  Paradise,  some  of  which  leave  the  original  out- 
lines for  a  fresh  creation,  as  in  East  of  the  Sun,  West  of 
the  Moon.  The  incessant  invention  of  the  Prologue  is 
another  good  example  of  this  quality.  It  is  worth 
while  to  recall,  as  an  example,  the  meeting  of  the 
Wanderers'  ship  with  King  Edward's  fleet  ofi"  the  coast 
of  France,  and  the  admirable  sketch  of  the  person  and 
character  of  the  King,  of  the  figures  of  the  young 
Prince  and  Chandos,  of  the  Royal  ship,  its  gorgeous 
sails  and  heraldic  glories.  But  there  are  a  host  of  such 
inventions  in  every  tale.  This  great  inventiveness 
saves  the  long  narratives  from  the  monotony  which  is 


26o  Foxir  Victorian  Poets 

the  greatest  danger  of  narrative  poetry,  a  point  on 
which  it  is  not  worth  while  to  enlarge. 

Then,  secondly,  there  is  a  remarkable  equality  of  ex- 
cellence, an  equality  which  ought  to  belong  to  narrative 
verse.  The  level  at  which  Morris  begins  any  story  is 
supported  throughout ;  the  atmosphere  is  not  changed. 
The  level  rises  where  it  ought  to  rise,  but  it  does  not 
rise  too  high  for  this  kind  of  poetry,  or  for  the  rest  of 
the  story.  Then,  though  it  rises,  it  never  falls.  I 
cannot  recall  in  that  vast  production  any  sinking  into 
plainly  inferior  work.  Certain  stories  are  not  as  well 
told  as  the  rest ;  those  he  loved  best  are  best  told  ;  but 
even  the  least  good  ones  do  not  fall  below  the  level  at 
which  he  began  them.  This  continuity  of  imaginative 
emotion,  always  and  equally  present,  without  haste 
and  without  rest,  is  excessively  uncommon,  especially 
in  poetry,  which  depends  so  much  on  the  unstable  rise 
and  fall  of  emotion.  Abounding  vitality  was  a  marked 
characteristic  of  his  whole  life  and  character,  of  what 
he  thought,  invented,  worked  at,  and  proclaimed. 
"  'Tis  Hfe  whereof  our  nerves  are  scant ' '  could  not  be 
said  of  Morris. 

Another  quality  of  the  poetry  is  the  great  clearness 
with  which  the  things  described  are  seen.  Everything 
is  seen  as  if  in  full  sunlight,  and  his  clear  sight  of  what 
he  saw  was  accompanied  by  an  equal  lucidity  in  its 
description.  The  execution  is  equal  to  the  vision,  the 
form  to  the  image  on  the  mind.  So  defined,  for  ex- 
ample, are  the  landscapes,  so  too  like  pictures  some- 


William  Morris  261 

times,  that  some  of  that  suggestiveness  is  lost  which, 
in  stimulating  the  reader's  imagination  to  create  for 
himself  worlds  beyond  the  world  described,  is  so  high 
and  fine  an  element  in  the  arts  of  poetry  and  music. 
However,  owing  to  the  clearness  of  sight  and  execu- 
tion, all  the  detail  is  exquisite.  I  know  no  other 
poetry  so  rich,  so  accurate,  in  portraiture  of  flowers  and 
trees,  of  sweet  meadows,  of  the  waves  of  the  sea,  of  the 
flowing  of  rivers,  of  the  play  and  work  of  the  weather, 
of  the  village  houses,  of  the  towers  and  walls  of  cities, 
of  dress  of  men  and  women,  of  armour,  and  furniture, 
of  tapestries  and  architecture,  of  a  hundred  things  that 
we  ought  to  see,  but  do  not.  In  comparison  with 
Morris,  most  of  the  other  poets  are  blind.  Sharp,  re- 
ceptive, and  retaining  were  his  eyes. 

This  brings  me  directly,  through  his  dear-seeing, 
and  his  power  of  shaping  in  words  what  he  saw,  to 
Morris  as  a  poet  of  nature.  Nature  is  described  by  him 
exactly  as  he  saw  her.  No  mystic  veil  is  thrown  over 
her.  No  philosophy  of  her  appears  in  Morris.  I  have 
said  this  with  regard  to  Arnold's  nature-poetry,  but 
Arnold  wavered  from  the  position.  Morris  never 
changed  it.  That  kind  of  thing  was  repugnant  to  him, 
nor  indeed  did  his  favourite,  Keats,  indulge  in  it. 
Morris  was  content  to  see  things  as  they  were.  A  cloud 
was  only  a  cloud,  a  stream  only  a  stream.  It  was 
enough  for  him  that  the  cloud  was  lovely,  and  the 
stream.  Nor  did  he  make  dht  of  nature  texts  for 
teaching  lessons  of  any  kind.     He  did  not  use  her  as 


262  Fo\ir  Victorian  Poets 

the  prophet  or  the  moralist  has  done  ;  nor  did  he  make 
analogies  between  her  doings  and  the  doings  of  men  in 
the  fashion  those  poets  and  preachers  do,  who  conceive 
that  she  and  man  proceed  from  the  same  creative 
thought,  and  therefore  touch  and  answer  one  another. 
He  places  man  in  the  midst  of  nature's  solemn,  con- 
stant, and  lovely  movement,  but  she  has  no  relation  of 
her  own  to  him.  Indifferent  to  us,  she  passes  on  her 
way, — the  beautiful  and  changing  background  only  of 
our  sorrow  and  joy. 

What  he  does  describe,  with  regard  to  her  and  us, 
is  the  contrast,  which  Arnold  also  felt,  between  her 
constancy,  continuity,  strength,  her  stately,  quiet 
movement,  her  beauty  and  apparent  joy,  and  our  in- 
constancy, fleetingness,  weakness,  hurried  and  broken 
life,  our  enduring  sorrows  and  our  momentary  joys. 
She  has  no  pause,  and  seemingly  no  end.  But  we  are 
creatures  of  a  day,  and  old  age  is  with  us  in  a  moment, 
and  death  divides  us  from  love  and  pleasure.  Therefore 
let  us  snatch  our  day,  and  take  what  we  can,  and 
quickly,  and  be  brave  and  thankful.  This  is  a  sad 
temper,  face  to  face  with  nature  ;  yet  it  was  the  temper 
of  Morris,  up  to  the  close,  at  least,  of  The  Earthly 
Paradise.  The  lyric  which  some  say  is  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  he  ever  wrote — I  do  not  agree  with 
them — and  which  occurs  in  the  story  of  Ogier  the 
Dane,  enshrines  this  ;  but  it  is  also  enshrined  in  almost 
every  one  of  the  lovely  introductions  to  the  different 
months  in  The  Earthly  Paradise^  short  poems  in  which, 


William  Morris  263 

were  it  not  for  their  want  of  joy  and  their  trembling 
melancholy,  more  dramatic  than  actual,  he  reached  his 
highest  level  in  lyric  poetry. 

These  descriptions,  unlike  most  of  the  natural  de- 
scriptions in  the  tales  themselves,  are  mixed,  in  con- 
trast, with  human  feeling,  and  chiefly  with  the  varied 
phases  of  love.  They  are  not  only  nature-poems,  but 
love-poems.  Their  main  character  is  that  of  sorrow. 
At  this  time  of  his  life  love  seemed  to  Morris  so  over- 
shadowed with  transiency  and  the  inevitableness  of 
death,  that  he  could  get  but  little  joy  out  of  it.  How- 
ever, as  time  went  on,  and  the  interests  of  the  present 
entered  into  his  soul,  as  well  as  those  of  the  past,  this 
element  of  sadness  disappears  from  his  treatment  of 
love.  The  lovers  in  his  prose  romances  are  sensible ; 
honestly  and  passionately  happy.  Their  present  joy\ 
makes  them  careless  of  the  future  :  quite  thoughtless, 
save  at  moments,  of  death.  As  to  old  age,  the  imag- 
ination of  it  does  not  cloud  their  youth.  Sufficient  to 
the  day  is  the  good  thereof. 

It  is  worth  while  to  linger  a  little  round  these  poems. 
They  are  twofold.  One  portion  of  them  is  dedicated 
to  a  description  of  the  natural  scenery  of  the  year. 
The  twelve  months  are  so  painted,  with  their  weather, 
their  work,  their  landscape,  that  each  of  them  seems 
to  grow  before  us  into  a  personage,  with  a  separate 
character.  Morris  does  not  himself  impersonate  them, 
but  we  do  under  his  impulse.     We  breathe  the  air  of 


264  Fo"ur  "Victorian  Poets 

their  separate  natures.  In  addition  to  this  impression — 
as  in  the  symbolism  of  the  months  round  cathedral 
doorways, — the  special  human  work  of  each  month  is 
represented  by  Morris,  and  imaginatively  inwoven  with 
the  landscape.  And  moreover,  the  distinct  spirit  of 
each  month  (proceeding  from  nature's  doings  and 
man's  doings  in  each  of  them)  enters  into  the  soul  of 
the  reader,  and  wakens  there  its  distinct  thought  and 
feeling, — the  soul  transmuting  the  natural  impression 
into  its  own  imaginative  passion.  This  is  a  vital  ele- 
ment in  the  work  of  Morris.  Nor  are  the  landscapes 
left  unanimated.  The  sky  is  full  of  flying  birds,  and 
so  are  the  woods  and  moors  and  pools.  The  kine  feed 
in  the  pastures,  the  bees  sing  from  flower  to  flower, 
the  dragon-flies  dart  by,  the  sheep  wander  to  their  folds 
in  the  evening.  The  blue-clad  horseman  rides  from 
vale  to  vale,  the  traveller  hails  the  ferryman  across  the 
swirling  river.  The  reapers,  the  shepherd,  the  plough- 
man, the  girls  in  the  orchard,  the  labourer  in  the  farm- 
yard, the  vintagers  ruddy  with  the  juice  of  the  vine,  a 
host  of  human  creatures  at  work  and  play,  fill  the 
landscape.  This  natural  description  is  one  side  of  these 
poems,  and  it  is  supported  and  enhanced  by  a  hundred 
descriptions  of  a  similar  kind  in  the  conduct  of  the 
stories. 

The  other  side  of  these  poems  is  personal,  and  has 
to  do  with  the  affairs  of  love.  Whether  they  represent 
any  real  experiences  of  Morris,  one  cannot  of  course 
tell.    They  seem  to  be  passionate.     I  wonder  if  they 


William  Morris  265 

are.  They  were  most  probably  invented.  But  the 
spirit  of  the  man  at  this  time  of  his  life  is  in  them. 
Their  temper  is  his  own,  and  it  is  uniformly  sorrowful 
with  regret,  with  the  hatred  of  old  age  and  death.  He 
sees  in  May  a  vision  of  the  Lord  of  l/ove  go  by,  in 
bright  procession,  but  behind  them  he  sees  Bid  and 
Death.  The  rest  of  the  world  did  not ;  May  had  so 
filled  them  that  they  forgot  they  must  die.  June  is  so 
beautiful  that  hopes  and  fears  are  gone.  We  take  her 
beauty — but  we  are  pensive  men.  Then  phase  after 
phase  of  love  is  touched ;  not  the  simple,  constant 
phases,  but  subtle,  transient,  involved  feelings,  such  as 
pass  through  a  lover  who  fears  what  will  become  of 
love  because  he  has  known  love  decay  in  the  past,  be- 
cause he  is  sure  of  inevitable  decay  in  the  future,  and 
because  of  dreadful  weariness,  so  dreadful  that  no 
world  there  seems 

Beyond  these  four  walls  hung  with  pain  and  dreams. 

Again,  he  has  seen  the  death  of  all  things,  which, 
living,  once  were  fair — image  of  dread  eternity. 

In  whose  void  patience,  how  can  these  have  part, 
These  outstretched  feverish  hands,  this  restless  heart  ? 

Then  the  faint  hopes  of  love  are  touched.     Cast  no- 
thing away  you  have  once  loved  ;  perchance  love's  day 
may  come.     There  may  yet  be  a  rest  for  me,  and  for 
the  world. 
These  are  some  of  the  motives,  most  minutely  varied. 


266  Four  Victorian  Poets 

of  these  poems.  One  would  not  dwell  on  them,  if  the 
temper  in  which  they  were  written  did  not  change  into 
a  healthier  temper,  as  his  life  and  work  opened  out 
before  him.  This  mood  was  transient.  It  sometimes 
recurred  in  after  days,  but  he  had  conquered  it.  But 
now  it  pervades,  not  only  these  poems,  but  some  of  the 
most  important  tales  in  The  Earthly  Paradise.  It  fills 
the  Prologue.  The  Wanderers  have  left  the  affairs  of 
love  behind,  for  old  age  is  on  them  and  death  near,  but 
while  they  remembered  how  futile  was  all  its  striving, 
they  are  sorry  it  is  past.  They  see  the  young  men  and 
the  maidens,  and  bid  them  take  their  joy,  while  they 
can.  It  is  true  they  are  themselves  at  peace,  but  it  is 
peace  with  sorrow.  With  them,  however,  personal 
love  was  never  the  first  thing,  but  insatiable  desire  of 
the  perfect  land.  Nothing  was  good  but  pursuit,  until 
they  could  pursue  no  more.  This  is  the  temper  of  the 
Prologue,  but  in  the  stories  which  follow  it,  love  runs, 
for  the  most  part,  on  well-known  lines,  natural,  simple, 
clear,  personal,  unmixed  with  subtle,  complex,  or  ob- 
scure feeling,  quite  unlike  the  love-poems  on  which  I 
dwell  at  present. 

There  are,  however,  two  tales  in  The  Earthly  Para- 
dise where  the  confused  wanderings  of  love-thinking, 
the  obscure  involutions  of  love-emotion  described  in 
these  short  love-poems,  occur  again —  The  Death  of  Paris 
and  The  Hill  of  Venus.  It  is  difficult  to  find  one's 
way  among  the  by-ways  of  incessantly  changing  feel- 
ing in  the  passionate  converse  of  Paris  and  ^none, 


William  Morris  267 

each  feeling  before  it  is  half  expressed  being  tript  up 
by  another;  but  that  is  probably  the  impression  the 
poet  desired  to  make.  It  is  still  more  difl&cult  to  dis- 
cover the  real  reason  why  Tannhaiiser  left  Venus,  but 
the  impression,  imposed  on  us,  as  we  read,  of  a  human 
soul  in  a  forbidden,  unhuman  land  and  hopelessly  lost 
therein,  of  a  mortal  linked  in  passion  to  an  immortal 
who  has  had  a  hundred  mortals'  loves  and  will  have  a 
hundred  more  when  he  is  dead,  of  an  immortal  shadow 
in  a  shadow  land,  who  knows  neither  sorrow  nor  as- 
piration, whose  high  godhead  is  dead  while  her  lonely 
sensual  joy  survives — remains  most  vividly,  and  drives 
our  curious  thinking  into  incursions  over  undiscovered 
realms  within  the  soul. 

Leaving  these  personal  poems,  of  so  remote  an  inter- 
est, I  return  to  his  nature-poetry.  The  descriptions,  so 
opulent  in  colour,  of  so  great  a  clearness,  so  enlivened 
with  animal  life  and  figures  and  done  with  so  careful 
a  love  of  beauty,  have  a  general  adaptation  to  the  story 
and  the  time  it  belongs  to,  but  they  have  no  other  rela- 
tion to  humanity.  In  this  he  is  quite  modem  and  of 
his  age.  We  may  choose,  as  an  example,  those  in  the 
tale — The  Man  Born  to  be  King,  and  in  The  Story  of 
Rhodope.  The  journey  of  Michael  to  the  Castle  of  the 
Rose  takes  two  or  three  days,  and  the  successive  land- 
scapes of  the  countryside  are  described  with  so  much 
charm  and  accuracy  that  we  see  them  with  the  rider's 
eyes  and  heart.     Rhodope  leaves  the  house  in  the 


268  Four  Victorian  Poets 

morning  and  walks  through  the  fields  and  woods  to  the 
seashore.  The  landscape  changes  as  she  moves,  and 
every  change  is  described,  till  we  reach  with  her  the 
sandy  bay  between  the  rocky  capes  and  hear  the  river 
meet  the  sea.  All  the  countryside  is  full  of  the  works 
of  men,  but  everywhere  also  is  the  soul  of  Rhodope. 

Such  creative  vision  does  not  belong  only  to  a  few 
poems.  It  is  present  in  every  story  of  the  book.  It  is 
only,  however,  the  modern  landscapist  who  would 
have  seen  •  and  chosen  them.  When  I  think  of  all 
Morris  did  in  this  way,  of  the  vast  number  of  scenes  he 
saw,  recorded,  and  invented,  I  am  astonished  by  his 
memory — which  must  almost  have  equalled  Turner's — 
of  what  he  saw ;  and  as  grateful  for  the  power  by 
which,  like  Ruskin,  he  has  opened  our  eyes  to  see,  ob- 
serve, and  keep  the  beauty  of  the  world.  I  have 
already  said  that  his  love  of  the  earth,  its  life  and  all 
the  life  of  animals  and  man  upon  it,  was  one  of  the 
strongest  passions  of  his  character.  But  that  which  he 
loved  the  most — and  wrote  of  with  unwearied  pleasure 
both  in  poem  and  romance — was  the  quiet  river  life  of 
Kngland,  its  cornfield  and  meadow,  the  granges  and 
villages  on  its  banks  and  on  the  hills  that  looked  upon 
it ;  the  woods  that  lived  by  its  waters  and  saw  their 
image  in  its  pools,  the  flowers  it  nurtured,  the  birds  that 
haunted  its  shallows,  the  full  or  rippling  streams  that 
from  the  bases  of  the  swelling  downs  flowed  into  it. 
'^^^Mountain  scenery,  with  its  savagery  and  splendour, 
xiid  not  move  his  heart  deeply,  not  even  the  Icelandic 


William  Morris  269 

scenery  which  was  loved,  so  far  as  he  loved  it,  not  so 
much  for  itself,  as  for  the  sake  of  those  brave  and  /* 
honourable  freemen  who  strove  for  life  therein  from 
tragedy  to  tragedy.  It  is  remarkable  that  in  the  story 
of  Gudrun,  in  The  Earthly  Paradise,  the  description  of 
nature,  so  varied  and  constant  in  the  other  tales,  scarcely 
exists  at  all.  The  wide  firth,  black  beneath  the  morn- 
ing star,  and  all  the  waste  of  snow,  did  not  please  him 
half  so  much  as  the  reaches  of  the  Thames,  or  the  ham- 
lets hidden  in  the  downs,  or  the  Danish  barrow  on  the 
hill  top,  or  the  grey  frontage  of  Peterborough  Cathe- 
dral looking  over  the  wide  fen.  The  island  to  which 
the  Wanderers  came,  and  where  the  Greek  folk  live,  is 
really  England  in  its  natural  scenery ;  the  doings  and 
weather  of  the  months  therein  are  taken  from  the 
England  of  the  fourteenth  century — even  to  the  vintag- 
ing  ;  and  half  the  descriptions  at  least  in  the  stories  of 
the  whole  book  are  transferred  direct  from  places  he 
had  seen  in  England,  or  in  Northern  France.  Nor  is 
this  deep  affection  for  this  still  scenery  absent  from  the 
prose  romances.  The  Dream  of  John  Ball,  and  especi- 
ally News  from  Nowhere,  are  thrilling  with  it, 

Celt  by  descent,  he  was  not  Celtic  in  his  natural 
description.  He  loved  rather  a  Teutonic  scenery, 
when  he  left  in  poetry  his  beloved  England.  If  he 
painted  only  a  sketch  here  and  there  of  Icelandic  land- 
scape— desolate  plain,  savage  mountain  gorge,  and 
fierce  seas,  matters  which  did  not  lie  close  to  his  heart — 
he  painted,  with  a  vital  touch,  with  a  wealth  of  lumin- 


270  Fo\ir  Victorian  Poets 

ous  description,  and  with  pleasure  that  breathes  in 
every  line,  the  scenery  of  the  Teutonic  lands  in  a  more 
temporate  clime  than  Iceland,  in  The  Roots  of  the 
Mountains.  The  valley  of  Burgdale  lives  in  its  readers ; 
I  see  its  tillage,  corn  land,  sweet  meadows,  clear 
streams  and  the  beautiful  people  who  live  in  it  day  by 
day ;  and  the  dark  woods  above  it  and  the  wild  moor- 
land, and  beyond,  the  mountain  range.  How  Morris 
loved  to  get  his  descriptions  definite  !  The  valley,  the 
town,  the  hall,  the  farmhouses  of  Burgdale,  each  in 
their  relation  to  the  scenery  and  the  waters,  might  be 
mapped  out  in  every  detail  from  his  description  of 
them  in  words.  In  the  beginning  of  The  Sundering 
Flood  he  has  made  a  lucid  map  of  the  whole  country 
of  which  the  story  tells,  and  the  country  is  none  we 
know.  It  existed  only  in  his  imagination,  but  when 
we  have  read  of  it,  we  know  it  to  its  remotest  nook  and 
smallest  stream.  This  is  enough,  perhaps,  to  say  of 
his  poetry  of  nature.  Bach  reader  can  say  for  himself 
more  than  I  can  sa5^  It  is  for  us,  who  dwell  in  cities 
over  much,  a  blessing  to  possess  it.  Kven  in  I^ondon, 
we  may  live  in  the  country  while  we  read. 

The  finest  charm  in  the  stories  of  The  Earthly  Para- 
dise is  their  romance.  The  Greek  stories  are  told  in 
the  same  romantic  temper  as  the  mediaeval  tales  ;  that 
is,  Morris  added  to  the  classic  outlines  the  ideals,  the 
longings,  the  passionate  thoughts  concerning  life  and 
death  and  love  and  beauty  which  a  modem  romantic 


Williain  Morris  271 

would  naturally  feel.  And  this  is  done  quite  frankly. 
There  is  no  imitation  of  the  classic  forms,  or  of  the 
classic  way  of  thought.  Nor  are  the  stories  Palladian, 
if  I  may  use  that  metaphor,  but  Gothic ;  remade  by 
fresh,  individual  emotion  out  of  the  old  material.  The 
Love  of  Alcestis — to  take  an  example — can  anything 
be  less  Greek  and  more  romantic  than  the  way  the  tale 
is  told  by  Morris  ?  It  is  curious  to  imagine  Euripides 
reading  it.  The  Perseus  story  is  told  with  a  great  de- 
light in  the  story  itself,  but  the  telling  of  it  is  trans- 
formed by  the  multitude  of  details,  and  by  delicate 
windings  of  emotion,  out  of  all  harmony  with  the 
Greek  Spirit,  and  into  harmony  with  the  romantic. 
The  story  of  Cupid  and  Psyche,  which  Morris  wrought 
with  the  utmost  care,  is  not  so  far  separated  from  the 
classic  temper  as  the  others,  because  his  original  was 
exquisitely  done  at  a  time  when  the  Greek  Spirit  had 
itself  become  partly  romantic.  It  was  bold  of  him  to 
rival  the  beauty  of  his  original,  but  he  has,  while 
losing  its  brevity  and  a  certain  stately  and  steady 
loveliness  in  the  brevity,  lengthened  it  with  so  much 
delightful  scenery  and  ornament  that  we  enjoy  its 
romantic  furniture  from  end  to  end.  The  two  Beller- 
ophon  stories  are  almost  entirely  invented  by  Morris. 
The  whole  countryside  in  both  poems,  at  Argos,  and  in 
I^ycia,  with  the  towns  and  their  buildings,  is  so  clearly, 
so  pictorially  painted,  that  we  might  map  out  the 
landscape.  The  streets  and  temples  and  palaces  of  the 
cities ;  their  gardens,  halls,  pleasure-chambers  ;  their 


272  Foxir  "Victorian  Poets 

crowds,  processions,  music — details  which  the  Greeks 
would  scarcely  have  touched — would  have  been  dear 
to  the  Romance-writers. 

These  two  poems  are,  however,  more  modern  than 
classic  or  romantic  by  a  closer  and  more  careful  elabor- 
ation of  human  character  than  usual;  and  this  is  due,  I 
think,  to  the  strong  influence  which  the  strong  and 
deep  humanity  of  the  story  of  Gudrun  had  exercised 
upon  him.  Bellerophon,  who  is  quite  uninteresting  at 
the  beginning,  is  wrought  into  a  higher  ideal  of  man- 
hood than  any  other  in  the  book.  Sthenobaea,  in  the 
invention  and  delineation  of  whose  character  and  fate, 
Morris  has  reached  a  high  tragic  level,  and  reached  it, 
not  with  the  Greek  reticence,  but  with  so  fluent  and 
opulent  an  invention  that  romantic  richness  can  go  no 
further,  is  contrasted  with  Philonoe's  pure,  delicate, 
natural,  passionate  girlhood — a  lovely  picture — nor  are 
the  other  characters  less  carefully  drawn.  As  to  the 
Chimoera  story  it  is  a  masterpiece  of  suggestion. 

The  lighter  Greek  tales,  of  Acontius,  Atalanta, 
Pygmalion,  the  Golden  Apples  and  others  are  delight- 
ful narrative,  at  intervals  quaintly  mediaeval  in  feeling, 
modem  in  their  love  of  natural  scenery,  romantic  in 
their  love  emotion,  and  Greek  only  in  their  story.  Of 
the  death  of  Paris,  which  stands  apart,  I  have  already 
said  something.  Of  the  story  of  Rhodope,  which  also 
stands  apart,  it  may  be  said  that  it  is  neither  Greek 
nor  romantic,  but  of  Morris  alone.  It  is  a  curious 
study  of  the  soul  of  a  woman,  born  into  a  world  which 


William  Morris  273 

is  not  hers  and  in  which  she  can  love  no  one  and 
nothing  ;  unawakened  to  life  till  she  attain  the  world 
which  fits  her  nature — one  of  Morris's  vague,  subtle, 
elusive  imaginations.  How  he  has  done  it  is  much 
more  interesting  than  the  thing  done. 

A  still  more  interesting  matter  in  these  Greek  tales 
is  the  way  Morris  conceives  the  Greek  gods,  Athena, 
Apollo,  Diana,  and  Venus.  His  images  of  them  and 
of  their  thoughts  are  naturally  according  to  tradition, 
but  only  in  part.  His  own  imagination  played  around 
them  and  made  them  new ;  and  that  which  is  new  in 
them  is  half  romantic,  half  of  modern  thought ;  such 
thought  as  collects  around  the  conception  of  beings 
who  know  not  age  or  death,  or  the  useless  quarrels, 
aspirations,  moralities,  or  hungers  of  the  life  of  man.  I 
give  one  instance  in  the  strange  song  Apollo  sings  at 
the  beginning  of  The  Love  of  Alcestis.  It  is  pure 
Morris  speaking  through  the  god.  But  it  not  only  in 
their  classic  realm  that  the  Greek  gods  are  treated  by 
Morris.  In  the  imagination  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the 
Greek  gods,  banished  from  the  Christian  world,  lived 
on,  as  distant  allies  of  Satan,  who  did  not  understand 
them,  in  secret  places  of  the  earth,  whence  sometimes 
they  came  forth  to  meet  in  ritual  procession  to  ancient 
sacred  places  ;  retaining  still  their  characters,  their 
splendour  though  fallen,  and  their  beauty.  Their 
nobleness  had  perished ;  their  evil  remains.  In  two 
stories — The  Ring  Given  to  Venus  and  The  Hill  of 
Venus — Morris  has  embodied  this  mediaeval  imagina- 

z8 


2  74  Four  Victorian  Poets 

tion  with  a  fine  intelligence  and  invention.  His 
Venus  of  the  Hill  is  no  longer  the  goddess  he  has 
made  in  the  Greek  tales,  but  the  fallen  power,  who 
can  give  the  enjoyment  of  sensuous  love  and  no  more, 
but  who  retains  the  exquisite  beauty  of  the  past ;  who 
loves  beauty,  but  has  no  knowledge  of  moral  or 
spiritual  beauty  ;  who  has  power  to  bring  around 
her  in  phantom  imagery  the  great  lovers,  even  of 
Christendom  if  love  was  all  in  all  to  them,  but  who  is 
totally  unable  to  understand  the  human  longings  and 
questionings  of  Tannhaiiser.  In  this  conception,  there 
is  little  of  mediaeval  thinking  on  the  matter,  and  a 
great  deal  of  Morris's  imagination,  curiously  roving 
through  his  knowledge  of  mediaeval  legend,  through 
his  own  soul,  and  through  the  modem  subtleties  which 
have  gathered  round  the  old  simplicities  of  love.  The 
Venus  of  the  Hill  is  still  the  same  to-day,  but  the 
Tannhaiiser  of  Morris  is  not  the  Knight  of  the  I^egend. 
He  is  one  of  ourselves. 

The  Ring  Given  to  Venus  also  brings  into  mediaeval 
life  the  Greek  gods.  The  story  is  told  delightfully, 
but  in  the  midst  of  its  delightfulness  is  the  terrible 
pageant  of  the  ancient  deities,  shown  now  in  their 
cruelty,  passing  by  lyaurence  into  the  dawn,  in  pro- 
cession from  the  lonely  glen  where  their  glorious 
temple  once  stood  among  its  groves.  The  tale  of  this 
watching  by  the  sea,  of  the  strange  company  passing 
by,  of  the  dark  I^ord  of  them  on  his  marvellous  beast ; 
the  charactering  of  Iris  and  Mercury,  of  Mars  and 


"William  Morris  275 

Venus,  are  done  with  intense  imagination.  I  am  all 
the  more  sorry  that  Morris  did  not  paint  Apollo, 
Athena,  Artemis,  and  Poseid6n,  as  he  thought  the 
mediaeval  phantasy  would  have  conceived  them.  In 
his  tales,  however,  the  gods  are  still  romantic,  but 
since  then,  they  have  fallen  even  lower  than  their 
mediaeval  place.  In  that  little  half-mocking,  half- 
pathetic  record  of  Heine's,  they  are  out  in  domestic 
service  in  Germany. 

We  are  in  full  romance  in  the  tale  of  Ogier  the  Dane. 
It  is  mixed  up  with  the  cycle  of  Charlemagne,  with 
Morgan  le  Fay,  and  with  the  land  of  the  Ever  Young, 
where  the  great  heroes  still  live  and  love  ;  and  a 
happy  mingling  it  is.  One  of  the  Oriental  tales  enters 
also  into  the  series ;  and  is  not  so  good  as  the  rest. 
Out  of  folk-stories,  worked  from  various  variants.  The 
Man  Born  to  be  King^  2J^^East  of  the  Sun  and  West  of 
the  Moon  are  borrowed.  The  first  of  these  is  told  with 
extraordinary  charm  and  invention.  The  second  is  full 
of  romantic  additions  and  incidents,  and  is  rendered 
more  interesting  by  the  transference  of  the  well-known 
beginning  to  a  northern  land  with  its  scenery,  and  with 
the  home  life  of  the  North  such  as  Morris  loved  to 
paint.  The  hero,  too,  possesses  the  character,  the 
sentiment,  the  sub-mysticism,  the  truth,  and  tender- 
ness of  the  North  ;  and  the  mystic  atmosphere  is 
enhanced  by  the  sketch  made  of  the  narrator  of  the 
tale.     Gregory  dreams  the  first  part,  dreams  that  he 


276  Fo\jir  Victorian  Poets 

hears  it  told  by  a  stranger  in  the  hall  of  King  Magnus. 
In  the  next  part  of  the  dream,  he  himself  tells  the  tale  ; 
is  himself  the  stranger  in  the  hall.  In  the  next  part, 
he  dreams  that  he  has  become  the  actual  hero  of  the 
story,  that  the  previous  adventures  which  the  stranger 
and  he  have  told  were  in  truth  his  own.  He  it  is  who 
wins  at  last  to  happiness  and  love  in  a  perfect  land. 
And  then  he  wakes  to  the  rude,  common  life  of  the 
world,  and  cannot  bear  it ;  but  walks  apart  trying  to 
remember  that  other  life  and  all  its  beauty.  This  is 
that  subtle  mysticism  of  Morris,  pushing  itself  into  the 
roms^ntic  tale,  and  the  invention  is  of  great  interest, 
and  all  the  more  because  the  motive  of  it  is  repeated  in 
some  of  the  prose  tales,  notably  in  John  Ball  and  in 
News  from  Nowhere.  I^astly,  the  northern  drift  of  his 
genius,  at  this  time,  appears  in  the  beautiful  and  ro- 
mantic rendering  of  the  story  of  Aslaug,  and  in  the 
noble  strength  with  which  he  has  told  the  tale  of 
Gudrun. 

We  are  then,  always,  even  in  the  northern  tales,  still 
more  in  the  Greek  tales,  in  the  land  of  romance ;  and 
with  a  perfection  of  story-telling  which  has  not  even 
been  approached  since  Chaucer,  and  of  which,  if  we 
could  get  it  as  good,  I  wish  we  had  a  hundred  volumes 
more.  For,  as  I  have  said,  these  tales  have  a  releasing 
power.  We  breathe  a  clean,  clear  atmosphere,  even  in 
the  tragic  tales.  The  men  are  free,  and  the  women. 
What  oppresses  them  is  Fate  and  Death,  not  their 
fellow-men.      Also,   they  are  individuals,   not   mere 


William  Morris  277 

numbers  in  the  social  prison,  forced  into  a  few  common 
grooves  in  order  to  live  ;  who,  if  they  break  loose  into 
individuality,  are  punished  or  sacrificed.  Morris  ab- 
horred as  the  curse  of  society — and  indeed  it  was  part 
of  his  socialism — the  withering  of  individual  thought, 
feeling,  and  act ;  and  even  in  his  lightest  story-telling 
we  may  trace  the  dominance  of  that  opinion. 

While  he  was  still  doing  this  romantic  work,  he 
came  more  closely  into  touch  with  the  Icelandic  sagas 
and  their  severity  ;  with  the  courage  against  fate 
which  is  one  of  their  most  ennobling  elements;  the 
silent  endurance  of  their  heroes  and  women  in  sorrow 
and  death  and  passion  ;  their  belief  in  dreams  and  a 
supernatural  world,  their  pleasure  in  fighting  and  in 
law ;  their  fateful  love ;  their  deep  humanity,  the 
quietude  and  justice  and  honour  of  it ;  their  tragic 
note,  in  that  tragic  scenery  which  called  on  all  the 
fighting  manliness  of  those  that  lived  in  it  and  in  the 
life  it  shaped  ;  their  grave  view  of  human  life,  even  of 
their  gods  whose  decrees  they  sternly  endured,  but 
against  whose  will  they  often  set  their  own  in  fearless 
even  moral,  opposition ;  their  stately  and  tragedy - 
making  women — and  he  rejoiced.  These  qualities  in 
the  Northern  Muse  and  the  Northern  characters  seized 
on  his  imagination  and  fittedJthe  maturer  man  in  whom 
had  already  grown  up  the  desire  to  be  no  longer  only 
* '  the  idle  singer  of  an  empty  day."  This  new  element 
appears  in  his  noble  rendering  in  The  Earthly  Para- 
dise of  the  Laxdcela  Saga,  the  Story  of  Gudrun^     The 


278  Four  Victorian  Poets 

very  character  of  the  poetry  has  altered  ;  also  its  style 
and  its  melody.  It  cannot  any  longer  be  classed  as 
merely  narrative  poetry.  It  is  not  indeed  epic,  but  it 
is  epical.  Its  style  ceases  to  be  romantic  ;  and  its 
melody  is  Dorian,  fit  for  that  dignified  and  tragic  tale. 
This  change,  which  many  persons  have  remarked — it 
could  scarcely  be  passed  by — enters  into  his  rendering 
of  the  story  of  Bellerophon^  and  I  wish  it  were  more 
clearly  and  plainly  to  be  felt  in  the  last  story  in  the 
book,  the  tale  of  The  Hill  of  Venus, 

When,  then.  The  Earthly  Paradise  was  closed  and 
published,  he  gave  all  his  energy  to  the  translation  of 
the  Norse  Tales,  only  interpolating  a  poem.  Love  is 
Enough,  It  is  a  modern  reanimation  or  remaking  of  a 
morality  play — we  might  even  call  it  a  miracle  play, 
one  of  those  that  represented  secular  subjects, — it  has 
touches  of  both.  It  is  a  short  piece  such  as  might  be 
acted  at  a  wedding  feast  before  bride  and  bridegroom. 
But,  save  in  its  form,  it  gives  no  idea  of  what  such  a 
play  would  have  been  in  the  fourteenth,  fifteenth,  or 
sixteenth  century.  Its  poetry  is  excessively  modern, 
and  full  of  modem  motives.  But  I  dare  say  Morris — 
just  as  he  medisevalised  the  Greek  stories — chose 
deliberately  to  modernise  this  ancient  form  of  drama. 
Hating  direct  imitation  as  he  did,  and  loving  to  bring 
the  new  out  of  the  old  form,  he  had  a  perfect  right  to 
do  this  ;  but  the  form  did  not  suit  his  special  narrative 
power.  He  was  precluded  by  it  from  invention  of  in- 
cident and  scenery  such  as  animates  his  long  stories ; 


"William  Morris  279 

and  the  poetry,  both  lyric  and  dramatic,  drags,  yet  is 
too  much  diluted.  There  are  some  lovely  descriptions 
of  nature  in  it,  but  they  are  sparsely  scattered.  The 
fairy-story  meeting  of  the  King  and  his  sweetheart  of 
whom  he  has  dreamed  for  years,  and  whom  he  has  left 
his  throne  to  seek,  is  told  with  idyllic  beauty.  It 
shines,  both  in  feeling  and  in  truth,  among  the  rest  of 
Love  is  Enough^  like  Venus  among  the  lesser  stars. 
The  pastoral  life  and  loves  of  Joan  and  Giles,  who  are 
spectators  of  the  play,  are  done  with  Morris's  dreaming 
grace.  Not  so  the  love-passages  of  the  Emperor  and 
Empress  at  whose  wedding  the  play  is  represented. 
These  want  nature  and  fire.  Moreover,  there  has  been 
a  great  deal  of  researching  pains  spent  on  the  verse 
and  its  various  metres,  so  much  so  that  the  poem  for 
those  who  read  this  kind  of  criticism  is  injured  by 
over-explanation.  The  introduction  of  science  into  a 
work  of  art  always  troubles  it.  Natural  passion  is 
taken  out  of  the  verse.  Even  Morris  himself  seems  to 
have  somewhat  lost  it  in  endeavour  after  various  forms 
of  verse.  Therefore,  in  spite  of  the  great  technical 
interest  of  this  poem,  and  perhaps  on  account  of  that, 
reality  seems  to  be  for  the  first  and  last  time  lost  in  a 
poem  by  Morris.  It  made  no  impression  on  the  world. 
Critics  may  hereafter  choose  it  as  a  kind  of  Exercier 
Platz  for  their  skill.  We  touch  it  and  pass  it  by.  It 
is  an  interlude  in  his  work. 

It  was  now  that  the  Muse  of  the  North  laid  her 
alluring  hand  upon  him,  and  claimed  his  love.     Her 


28o  Four  Victorian  Poets 

nature,  her  teaching,  her  eyes,  now  grave,  now  wild, 
her  feeling,  deep  but  austere,  her  view  of  life,  suited 
his  autumn  character,  and  he  fell  in  love  with  her.  He 
had  gone  through  his  romantic  period,  and,  coming 
out  of  the  other  side  of  it,  found  himself  alone,  some- 
what desolate  of  heart,  and  needing  a  new  impulse. 
What  he  felt,  and  how  he  felt,  when  into  him  poinred 
the  flood  of  these  new  stories  of  human  life,  is  told  in  a 
poem — To  the  Muse  of  the  Norths  which,  for  its  insight 
into  the  northern  nature  and  his  own,  ought  to  be  read 
throughout,  but  of  which  I  can  only  quote  the  begin- 
ning and  the  end.  It  describes  a  landmark  in  the  de- 
velopment of  Morris,  and  is  to  be  found  in  Poems  by 
the  Way. 

O  Muse  that  swayest  the  sad  Northern  Song, 

Thy  right  hand  full  of  smiting  and  of  wrong, 

Thy  left  hand  holding  pity  ;  and  thy  breast 

Heaving  with  hope  of  that  so  certain  rest : 

Thou,  with  the  grey  eyes  kind  and  unafraid, 

Thy  soft  lips  trembling  not,  though  they  have  said 

The  doom  of  the  World  and  those  that  dwell  therein. 


O  Mother,  and  Love  and  Sister  all  in  one 

Come  thou  ;  for  sure  I  am  enough  alone, 

That  thou  thine  arms  about  my  heart  should'st  throw, 

And  wrap  me  in  the  grief  of  long  ago. 

These  were  the  passionate  elements  in  this  new  love  of 
his,  but  there  were  other  elements  in  it  which  also 
suited  that  part  of  his  nature  which  was  not  romantic. 
There  was  a  roughness,  grimness,  and  fighting  passion 
in  him,  combined,  or  rather  existing  side  by  side  with 


William   Morris  281 

his  love  of  beauty,  love  of  nature,  and  love  of  love, 
which  found  themselves  at  home  in  the  northern  world  ; 
and  were  more  fully  developed  by  his  journey  to  Ice- 
land, in  the  scenery  and  life  of  which,  at  least  in 
memory,  he  revelled  like  a  Troll  on  a  holiday.  If 
Iceland  was  once  started  in  conversation,  Morris  clung 
to  it  like  ivy  to  the  oak.  Nothing  else,  for  hours 
together,  was  allowed  into  the  conversation.  It  was 
sometimes  terrible,  and  he  looked  like  Snorri  Sturluson 
himself. 

I  partly  regretted  this  development,  but  it  gave  to  us 
his  splendid  epic  rendering,  in  original  verse,  of  the 
mighty  story  of  Sigurd,  Brynhild,  and  Gudrun — the 
finest  story  perhaps  in  the  modern  world.*  But  I  only 
gave  it  this  partial  regret  because  it  seemed  to  do  away 
with  his  poetry.  We  had  afterwards,  it  is  true,  the 
translations  of  Virgil's  ^neid  and  of  the  Odyssey — in- 
teresting and  effective,  but  neither  of  them  Virgilian  or 
Homeric  ;  but  now,  with  the  sole  exception  of  this  new 


*  Note. — it  is  interesting  to  compare  the  accurate  translation 
he  made  of  the  Icelandic  form  of  the  Volsunga  Saga  with  his 
poetical  rendering  of  it.  I  do  not  mean  in  the  lavish  orna- 
mentation he  added  to  the  story,  but  in  the  way  he  added 
his  own  thoughts  to  these  portions  of  the  tale  in  which  the 
Northern  thoughts  on  human  life  and  the  gods  are  expressed. 
In  those  additions  the  soul  of  Morris  is  opened  to  us  ;  and  I  in- 
stance especially  the  way  in  which  he  has  expanded  the  long, 
sententious  speech  of  Brynhild  to  Sigurd  after  he  had  wakened 
her  on  the  Hill  of  Fire.  He  has  even  inserted  in  it  thoughts 
which  would  never  have  occurred  to  a  Northern  hero,  much 
less  to  a  daughter  of  Odinn, 


282  Yoxxr  Victorian  Poets 

rendering  of  the  Volsunga  Saga^  a  little  volume  of 
lyrical  poems  and  the  verses  in  the  prose  romances,  the 
poetry  of  Morris  closes.  He  is  absorbed  in  the  north 
and  the  northern  spirit.  But  after  all,  it  is  best  for  an 
artist  to  do  that  which  impassionates  him,  and  to  take 
with  thanks  what  he  offers  us.  And  it  is  good  for  the 
English  people  to  be  brought  closely  into  contact,  other- 
wise than  by  scientific  scholarship,  with  the  high,  cour- 
ageous and  human  stories  of  our  northern  ancestors  ; 
to  realise  their  free  and  noble  temper  at  a  time  when 
we  are  commercialised,  and  have  forgotten  too  much  the 
manly  virtues  of  a  great  state;  it  is  good  for  us  to 
hark  back,  in  an  age  of  luxury,  to  a  time  when  men  lived 
in  continual  strife  for  their  lives  with  the  cruel  forces  of 
nature,  and  fought  to  the  death  in  desperate  straits  for 
honour  and  for  fame  ;  when  women  were  honoured  and 
played  their  part;  and  when  the  best  religion  for  men, 
was  to  live,  without  fear  and  with  justice,  in  fellowship 
with  one  another,  and  then  to  let  the  gods,  if  they 
were  able,  do  their  part  also  without  favour.  That  is 
no  bad  thing  to  infiltrate  into  the  weakened  blood  of 
England. 

I  think  that  living  in  these  stories  nursed  the  modern 
revolutionist  in  Morris,  and  added  imagination  to  the 
energy  with  which  he  took  up,  in  his  Socialism,  the 
cause  of  the  enslaved  in  England.  The  wild  poetry, 
the  steady  temper  of  the  tales,  idealised  and  strength- 
ened the  grim  realism  of  his  four  years'  work  from 
street  to  street,  from  one  small  lecture  room  to  another ; 


William  Morris  283 

and  enabled  him  for  a  long  time  to  resist  the  despair 
which  crept  upon  him  in  contact  with  the  blind  and 
useless  quarrels  of  which  he  knew  too  many.  Like 
Sigurd,  he  fought  with  the  Dragon  of  Capitalism, 
lying  like  Fafnir  round  its  gold  ;  like  Sigurd,  fate  and 
the  time  were  against  him,  and  ancient  feuds ;  and  like 
Sigurd,  his  battle  has  won  for  him  an  immortal  name, 
and  handed  down  an  impulse  full  of  power  and  use  to 
the  future ;  when,  not  in  the  Communism  he  pictured 
in  News  from  Nowhere,  but  in  a  higher  organisation  of 
universal  Labour — justly  and  quietly  established  by 
law,  and  performed  by  all  men — his  hopes  and  faith 
may  yet  be  realised.  It  is  the  divine  and  human  faith 
by  which  we  endure,  and  live.  He  came  to  that  view 
in  the  end,  but  at  first  he  felt  that  there  would  be  a 
desperate,  even  a  sanguinary,  struggle  between  the  Old 
and  the  New  ;  and  I  dare  say  this  fighting  expectation 
was  born  in  him  out  of  the  temper  induced  by  the 
northern  stories.  Could  he  but  have  set,  at  this  time, 
oppressive  wealth  and  enslaved  labour  to  fight  the 
quarrel  out  on  Holmgang,  how  much  he  would  have 
loved  it. 

Moreover  he  found  in  these  stories  natural,  even 
primaeval,  passions,  seeking  their  natural  ends  in  a 
natural  society  ;  and  they  appealed  for  treatment  to  the 
second  half  of  his  nature  which  was  not  satisfied  with 
romantic  food.  In  them  he  found  a  grimmer  realism,  a 
closer  truth  to  human  strife  and  sorrow  than  he  could 
isolate  from  the  beauty  of  the  Greek  or  the  mediaeval 


284  Foxir  "Victorian  Poets 

stories.  This  suited  him  now,  for  the  problem,  as  they 
call  it,  of  life  lay  hard  upon  him.  He  could  not  put 
it  aside,  and  live  with  Cupid  and  Psyche,  even  with 
Ragnar  and  Aslaug.  And  his  love  of  beauty  was  for  a 
space  in  abeyance  ;  and  his  pity  for  the  sorrow  and  the 
unrelenting  fates  of  men  uttermost.  His  Socialism  and 
its  propaganda  were  simmering  in  his  heart.  No  more 
were  his  four  walls  hung  with  his  own  pain  and 
dreams,  but  with  the  pain  and  the  dreams  of  the  world. 
I  have  said  that  poetry  concerned  only  with  the  past, 
like  that  of  The  Earthly  Paradise^  and  receiving  no 
emotion  from  the  living  present,  is  in  itself  often  of 
great  beauty,  but  has  no  element  of  continuity.  The 
poet  cannot  go  on  producing  it.  It  was  so  with  Morris. 
Actual  human  emotion  flowing  in  upon  him  from  all 
sides  mastered  him,  and  he  found  some  outlet  for  this 
in  the  record  of  the  austere  loves,  bitter  revenges,  fate- 
ful sorrows,  undying  honour,  heavy  fighting,  and 
transient  joys  of  the  Icelandic  Sagas ;  and  in  their  iron 
scenery.  This  culminated  in  his  rendering  of  the  Vol- 
su7iga  Saga.  His  recreation  of  the  tale  gallops  along 
with  sufficient  rapidity  to  excuse  its  length.  It  is 
pleasant  to  read  long  poems  when  we  are  lazy  with  en- 
joyment of  the  world,  and  have  not  time  to  hurry,  and 
when  they  are  ornamented  enough  with  inventive  inci- 
dent and  detail.  Those  who  are  not  capable  of  this 
temper  can  read  Morris's  translation  of  the  Icelandic 
version  of  the  tale.  That  is  short  enough  not  to  give 
the  poor  folk  who  love  to  live  in  a  hurry  too  much 


William   Morris  285 

trouble.  But  one  or  other  ought  to  be  read.  It  is  a 
shame  not  to  know  the  great  story.  Knglish  people, 
whose  blood  is  Teutonic  by  three  several  strains,  have 
little  acquaintance  with  the  most  ancient  records  of  the 
thoughts  and  lives,  the  passions  and  manners,  of  their 
ancestors.  Beowulf  has  only  lately  been  well  put  in 
their  power,  but  the  Volsunga  Saga^  in  its  German 
form,  was  open  to  the  public  sixty  years  ago  in  many 
versions  of  the  Niebelungen  Lied.  One  would  have 
thought  that  when  Morris  translated  and  then  with  a 
splendid  joy  and  force  poetised  its  northern  form, 
Knglish  people,  who  knew  the  stories  of  the  origin  of 
the  Jews,  of  Rome  and  Greece,  would  have  been  anxious 
to  read  of  their  own  origins.  Not  at  all !  They  were 
interested  in  Jason,  not  in  Sigurd.  This  book  of 
Morris's  was  but  little  read  when  it  was  published.  It 
has,  and  no  wonder,  steadily  increased  in  favour  among 
the  general  public,  but  even  now  it  has  not  come  home 
to  England. 

And  if  the  beginning  be  too  terrible,  too  primaeval, 
we  may  read  alone  the  Sigurd  story.  It  is  objected  to 
Morris's  poem  that  it  would  have  had  a  greater  epic 
unity  had  it  used  the  story  of  Sigurd  only,  and  left  out 
the  barbaric  prologue  of  Sigmund,  Signy,  and  Sinfiotli; 
and  there  is  much  force  in  the  objection.  The  art  of 
the  poem,  that  is,  of  its  shaping,  might  have  then  been 
better.  But  Morris,  who  I  dare  say  agreed  with  this 
objection  when  he  had  finished  the  poem,  liked,  I  con- 
jecture, the  primaeval  savagery  of  the  Sigmund  story  ; 


286  Fouir  Victorian  Poets 

and  did  what  he  liked,  even  when  he  did  not  quite 
approve  of  what  he  did.  For  my  part,  I  am  glad  he 
wrote  it.  I  have  no  wish  to  whip  the  story  of  the 
Volsungs  into  an  artistic  epic.  It  never  was  a  piece  of 
fine  art,  and  I  hope  it  never  will  be  subjected  to  its 
canons.  It  is  rudely  built  up  out  of  many  sagas,  as  a 
cathedral  which  ten  generations  have  worked  upon, 
each  with  its  own  design ;  and  the  best  principles  to 
apply  to  its  treatment,  as  to  the  cathedral,  are  the 
principles  of  the  Anti-Scrape  Society.  And,  moreover, 
it  ought  to  please  us,  overdone  with  our  cultivated  sur- 
roundings, to  step,  at  least  in  imagination,  and  with 
Morris  growling  with  pleasure  at  our  side,  into  that 
very  ancient  country,  where  savagery  and  honour,  and 
faithfulness  to  love  and  vengeance,  went  together; 
where  Odinn  came  to  the  feast,  and  drove  the  sword  into 
the  Branstock  ;  where,  one-eyed,  in  his  blue  cloak,  he 
looked  from  under  his  slouched  hat,  amidst  the  din  and 
swording  of  the  battle,  into  the  face  of  the  fated  hero, 
and  bore  him,  when  dead,  to  Valhalla  ;  a  land  where 
men  might  still  become  wolves ;  and  Signy  could  lie 
with  her  own  brother  to  beget  a  son  who  shall  slay 
her  husband  and  his  children  for  the  sake  of  avenging 
her  father  and  her  brothers,  and  yet  die  with  the 
husband  she  hated,  rather  than  live  with  those  she 
loved  and  with  the  memory  of  what  she  had  done. 
This  is  a  world,  into  which,  out  of  this  world,  it  is 
not  unuseful  to  step  at  times.  We  are  too  forgetful 
of  the  roots  of  savagery  in  humanity,  and  think  too 


William  Morris  287 

carelessly  that  they  are  altogether  worked  out ;  and 
when  we  meet  them,  to  our  vast  surprise,  in  our 
civilisation,  we  find  them  worse  than  they  were  in  Sig- 
mund's  time,  because  there  is  not  with  them  the  truth, 
the  promise-keeping,  the  courage,  and  the  honour 
which  the  Volsungs  had.  I  had  rather  live  with  the 
men  and  women  of  the  Sigmund  story  than  with  the 
wolfish  men  and  women  who  ruined  the  French  Revo- 
lution by  their  savage  bestiality,  or  with  the  financial 
dogs  who  to-day  plunder  and  destroy  the  innocent  and 
the  fools  who  trust  them.  • 

Then,  having  done  that  piece  of  work,  he  was  borne 
away  on  the  stream  of  Socialism,  and  looked  forward, 
through  a  violent  revolution,  to  a  changed  society.  To 
dwell  on  this  socialist  struggle  is  not  in  my  subject. 
It  does  not  take  much  trouble  to  be  a  Socialist  now, 
and  it  does  not  bring  with  it  now  any  sacrifice.  But 
Morris  did  take  trouble,  and  suffered  trouble.  He 
sacrificed  money,  health,  peace,  his  darling  work,  his 
passion  for  beauty  in  literature  and  art,  to  his  convic- 
tions, and  for  nearly  four  years  of  unremitting  exertion. 
Were  it  not  for  the  noble  moral  efibrt  he  made  to  re- 
generate society,  were  it  not  for  the  incalculable  good, 
which,  for  the  cause  of  a  better  world,  emerged  out  of 
his  work,  and  will  continue  to  breathe  its  helpful 
spirit  into  men,  there  would  be  something  more 
pathetic  than  usual  in  the  fate  which  drove  this 
artist  into  this  sad  and  weary  work.  But  we  cannot 
mourn  for  that.     The  seeds  were  sown;  and  Morris 


288  Fovir  Victorian  Poets 

would  have  said,  with  sad  content — The  harvest  is 
yet  to  be. 

When  this  active  propaganda  of  his  was  over,  he  was 
able  to  give  a  fuller  attention,  while  he  continued  his 
quiet  work  for  Socialism  at  Hammersmith,  to  his  lit- 
erary work.  He  published  his  translation  of  the 
Odyssey  and  got  back,  through  it,  to  his  darling  story- 
telling. Then  he  recurred  to  his  beloved  centuries  in 
The  Dream  of  John  Ball,  in  which  he  expressed  not 
only  his  social  views,  but  also  his  inner  life.  It  paints 
English  society  as  it  was  when  the  feudal  system  was 
breaking  up,  and  contrasts  it  with  what  English  society 
is  now.  And  a  noble  book  it  is.  It  closes  with  a  vague 
hope  of  what  society  might  come  to  be.  What  that 
society  was  to  be  he  painted  in  News  from  Nowhere ^ 
and  in  it  also  Morris  opens  his  soul  to  those  who  can 
comprehend  it.  The  communism  of  the  book  is  not 
likely  ever  to  arise,  but,  as  we  read,  we  may  put  that 
by.  What  remains  is  a  lovely  vision  of  a  world  of 
beauty,  peace,  and  joy,  where  men  are  as  happy  in  work 
as  in  play  ;  where  humanity  and  nature  are  loved,  and 
all  men  are  brothers,  save  when  jealousy  intervenes ; 
where,  above  all,  for  that  was  his  first  principle,  all 
work  was  done  with  personal  pleasure. 

And  in  that  is  the  charm,  the  use,  and  the  refreshing 
of  the  book.  It  falls  like  dew  upon  our  hearts.  I  de- 
clare that  in  the  emotions  these  two  books  awaken 
more  impulse  is  given  to  the  cause  of  a  great  fellow- 
ship of  men  banded  together  to  establish  a  righteous, 


William  Morris  289 

just,  free,  and  happy  state,  than  will  be  given  by  all 
the  scientific  economists  of  Socialism.  These  books 
nourish  that  inward  spirit,  without  which  all  their 
science,  needful  as  it  is,  is  blown  like  chafi"  from  the 
threshing-floor  of  the  earth.  Morris  did  more  useful 
work  for  his  cause  by  them  than  by  his  four  years* 
propaganda  in  streets  and  lecture  rooms.  Then  it 
struck  him  that  he  would  picture,  not  a  half- mediaeval 
society  such  as  he  paints  in  John  Ball, — in  whose  moral 
and  imaginative  life  he  could  not  find  the  qualities  of 
character  he  wished  to  display,  and  in  whose  society 
there  was  decay  rather  than  vigorous  life — but  another 
kind  of  social  state,  which  should  have  the  noble  and 
masculine  qualities  of  the  northern  character,  without 
its  grimness  and  fierceness  and  with  the  love  of  beauty 
and  of  nature  which  it  did  not  possess ;  which  should 
be  youthful  and  full  of  the  future,  with  the  hopes  and 
faith  of  youth,  and  with  an  intense  love  of  life  ;  joyous 
and  free  ;  grave  in  counsel  for  the  state ;  brave  in  war 
for  defence  of  home ;  inured  to  war,  yet  eager  for  peace ; 
rejoicing  in  the  tillage  of  the  earth,  in  hunting,  in 
keeping  of  cattle ;  devoted  to  home ;  honouring  its 
women,  and  having  in  it  women  worthy  of  all  honour 
for  intellect,  for  the  work  of  daily  life,  for  counsel  and 
for  war,  for  love  and  motherhood.  This  he  thought, 
as  I  believe,  would  realise  an  ideal  life  before  our  sad 
and  spoiled  society.  And  he  wrote  The  House  of  the 
Wolfings,  but  especially  The  Roots  of  the  Mountains, 
The  first,  though  stronger  in  note,  is  not  so  imagina- 
19 


290  Foxir  Victorian  Poets 

live  nor  so  actual  a  representation  as  the  second. 
There  is  more  possible  history  in  it.  Moreover,  it 
contains  in  it  a  supernatural  element,  which  takes 
away  from  the  naturalness  of  the  story.  The  second 
has  nothing  of  this.  It  is  realistic  enough,  and  the 
supernatural  does  not  intrude.  Nor  do  I  think  there 
is  a  more  beautiful,  more  enchanting  story  in  the  world, 
nor,  with  all  its  realism,  a  more  ideal  thing.  "  This  '* 
— Morris  is  saying  through  all  his  tale — ''this  is  the 
true  temper  of  the  world  as  it  ought  to  be ;  this  is  the 
noble  society,  and  this  its  spirit." 

We  cannot  go  back  to  that  kind  of  life,  but  we  can 
re-establish  its  spirit,  and  love  its  beauty.  And,  in- 
deed, the  love  of  beauty,  lost  to  Morris  in  its  fulness  in 
those  northern  tales,  returns  to  him  in  these  stories, 
and  never  leaves  him  again.  The  love  of  nature  has 
come  back,  and  flows  like  a  stream  through  The  Roots 
of  the  Mountams,  The  descriptions  of  valley  and 
meadow  and  clear  waters  and  mountain  woods  and 
fells  are  as  lovely,  even  lovelier,  than  any  in  The 
Earthly  Paradise,^  and  they  are  filled  with  a  nobler, 
happier,  and  more  hopeful  humanity.  Fate  and  Sorrow 
do  not  brood  over  them,  and  Death  is  not  the  woeful 
wonder  it  is  in  The  Earthly  Paradise,  The  undertone 
of  life  is  happiness;  the  undertone  of  happiness  is 
fulness  of  life.  Morbid  regret  does  not  exist  among 
the  people,  frill  of  pleasure  in  their  daily  work  when 
they  are  at  peace,  and  going  to  war  with  a  high  heart 
which  takes  them  singing  into  the  battle. 


William  Morris  291 

Above  all,  there  is  in  these  stories,  and  indeed  in  the 
stories  which  follow,  but  not  so  fully  as  in  these,  a  re- 
presentation of  womanhood  which  is  more  perfect  than 
any  that  I  know  in  literature.  It  might  be  called 
ideal,  but  I  prefer  to  call  it  real,  for  it  is  that  which 
womanhood  would  easily  be,  according  to  her  nature, 
in  a  nobly  organised  society.  And  it  is  not  a  represent- 
ation which  makes  her  an  object  of  worship  to  man, 
or  exalts  her  by  depreciating  man.  She  and  he  are 
naturally  equal  and  necessary  to  one  another.  It  is 
the  real,  the  true  thing  ;  but  it  will  seem  unreal  to  our 
society  for  a  long  time.  Some  way  or  other,  one  had 
not  been  led  to  expect  this  from  Morris.  The  women 
in  the  early  poems,  in  Jason  and  TTie  Earthly  Paradise ^ 
have  charm  and  naturalness,  are  never  debased ;  but 
they  are  the  women  of  the  stories,  acting  and  thinking 
in  harmony  with  the  stories ;  only  with  a  grace,  es- 
pecially when  they  are  young,  which  arises  from 
Morris,  not  from  the  story.  But  here,  in  these  two 
stories,  there  are  three  women  who  are  not  goddesses,  for 
they  know  and  rejoice  in  mortal  love  and  life,  but  who 
have  the  moral  qualities  of  Athena  in  their  thought  and 
act  —  high  intelligence,  physical  beauty,  imaginative 
love  —  the  woman  called  the  Sun  in  The  House  of  the 
Wolfings,  the  Bride  and  the  Friend  in  The  Roots  of  the 
Mountains,  Naturalness — pure  natural  womanhood 
with  its  sensible  passion  nobly  felt,  openly  acknow- 
ledged, are  given  to  *'The  Bride  "  and  "  The  Friend," 
great  personal  beauty  and  dignity,  gentle  manners. 


V 


292  Fovir  Victorian  Poets 

lovely  dress,  swiftness,  strength,  and  grace.  ''The 
Sun  "  is  of  the  same  nobility,  but  being  a  prophetess, 
is  more  removed  from  natural  humanity.  All  of  them 
— even  the  less  important  women  in  these  tales,  while 
living  close  to  the  realities  of  life,  are  of  a  natural 
sweetness  and  greatness.  They  are  never  apart  from 
domestic  life  and  motherhood,  but  they  are  also  never 
apart  from  the  interests  of  the  community.  They 
stand  in  intelligence,  and  for  advice,  and  wisdom,  on  a 
natural  level  with  the  men.  They  are  always  con- 
sulted in  matters  which  involve  the  safety  or  progress 
of  the  commonweal.  They  even  go  to  war,'and  join 
in  the  battle.  In  matters  of  love,  they  are  natural, 
"  frank,  chaste,  and  passionate.  No  one  could  imagine 
from  an5rthing  Morris  says  in  these  stories  that  there 
was  ever  such  a  question  as  the  equality  of  the  sexes. 
The  men  are  men  and  the  women,  women,  and  each 
are  absolutely  necessary  to  one  another,  and  to  the 
State,  and  equally  necessary.  The  question  of  man 
versus  woman  has  never  occurred  to  the  dwellers  in 
Burgdale.  When  we  see  the  relations  of  men  and 
women  in  this  happy  place,  we  say — this  is  the  natural 
thing — this  is  what  was  intended,  this  is  civilisation  ; 
and  when,  in  a  better  society,  womanhood  reaches  the 
heights  it  is  capable  of  gaining,  and  man  steps  along 
with  her  into  worthiness,  Morris's  women  in  these 
stories  will  be  remembered.  They  came  out  of  his  soul, 
and  were  built  of  his  imagination  ;  and  this  conception 
of  her  was  one  of  the  hidden  things  which,  unsuspected. 


\ 


William  Morris  293 

lay  like  pearls  in  the  deep  and  solitary  sea  within  him. 
Womanhood  should  be  grateful  to  him,  but  no  atten- 
tion, as  far  as  I  know,  has  been  bestowed  by  women 
on  this  noble  representation. 

And  now,  like  a  child,  who,  having  wandered  far 
over  wild  moorland  and  stony  places,  finds  at  last  the 
path  to  home,  and  knows  that  weariness  will  end, 
Morris  came  back  to  the  full-coloured  dreamland  of  ^^ 
his  youth,  where  the  Sword  goes  out  to  sea,  and  the  f 
knights  ride  through  the  Hollow  I^and,  and  the  red 
roses  are  seen  across  the  moon,  and  Gwendelen  lets 
down  her  golden  hair  to  the  Prince,  and  the  Seven  Stars 
ride  through  Heaven.  All  the  later  romances  are  in 
this  world  beyond  the  world.  They  have  no  historical  y 
element  like  The  House  of  the  Wolfing s  or  The  Roots  of 
the  Mountains.  They  began  with  The  Glittering 
Plain^  and  the  passage  Mr.  Mackail  quotes  from  that 
book  describes  their  world  and  its  temper  so  accur- 
ately, that  no  better  image  can  be  given  of  it.  "She 
had  in  her  hand  a  book  covered  outside  with  gold  and 
gems,  even  as  he  saw  it  in  the  orchard-close  aforetime ; 
and  he  beheld  her  face  that  it  was  no  longer  the  face  of 
one  sick  with  sorrow,  but  glad  and  clear  and  most 
beauteous.  Now  she  opened  the  book  and  held  it  be- 
fore Hallblithe  and  turned  the  leaves  so  that  he  might 
see  them  clearly;  and  therein  were  woods  and  castles 
painted,  and  burning  mountains,  and  the  walls  of  the 
world,  and  kings  upon  their  thrones,  and  fair  women 


294  Fo\ir  Victorian  Poets  \ 

and  warriors,  all  most  lovely  to  behold,  even  as  he  had 
seen  it  aforetime  in  the  orchard  where  he  lay  lurking 
amidst  the  leaves  of  the  bay  tree.  So  at  last  she  came 
to  the  place  in  the  book  wherein  was  painted  Hall-  , 
blithe' s  own  image  over  against  the  image  of  the  Host- 
age ;  and  he  looked  thereon  and  longed.  But  she 
turned  the  leaf,  and  lo !  on  one  side  the  Hostage  again, 
standing  in  a  fair  garden  of  the  spring  with  the  lilies 
all  about  her  feet,  and  behind  her  the  walls  of  a  house, 
grey,  ancient,  and  lovely ;  and  on  the  other  leaf  over 
against  her  was  painted  a  sea  rippled  by  a  little  wind 
and  a  boat  thereon  sailing  swiftly,  and  one  man  alone 
in  the  boat  sitting  and  steering  with  a  cheerfuil  coun- 
tenance ;  and  he,  who  but  Hallblithe  himself.  Hall- 
blithe  looked  thereon  for  a  while  and  then  the  king's 
daughter  shut  the  book,  and  the  dream  flowed  into 
other  imaginings  of  no  import." 

It  is  strange  to  think  that,  while  he  was  living  con- 
tinually in  this  far-off  country  of  creative  imagination, 
where  the  supernatural  still  lingered  and  companied 
with  men,  where  the  personages  and  manners  were  for 
the  most  part  of  that  thirteenth  or  fourteenth  century 
which,  having  loved  from  the  beginning,  he  loved  to  the 
end  ;  where  the  women  were  not  so  lofty  in  character  as  ^ 
in  Tke  Roots  of  the  Mountains,  but  were  fresh,  loving, 
true,  and  charming ;  where  his  love  of  nature  and  of  me- 
diaeval colour  and  architecture  recurred  again  in  a  flood 
of  pleasure — it  is  strange  to  think  that  in  another  and 
an  outward  life,  he  was  doing  steadily  all  the  practical 


"William  Morris  295 

work  he  had  begun  of  old,  and  inventing  new  labours. 
He  carried  on  his  business,  and  added  to  its  interests. 
He  started  the  Kelmscott  printing  press,  made  new 
founts  of  type,  new  paper,  new  ink,  and  wrought  the 
initial  letters  and  the  ornaments.  This  was  his  latest 
passion.  *  *  I  wish  I  had  been  a  printer  from  my  mother' s 
womb,"  he  said,  with  almost  a  fierce  intensity.  At 
the  same  time  he  was  publishing  and  translating  the 
Icelandic  Sagas  and  The  Heimskringla,  Then  he  gave 
a  good  deal  of  time  to  the  Society  for  the  Preservation 
of  Ancient  Buildings  ;  he  lectured  on  Art,  its  aims,  its 
relation  to  work,  and  he  published  the  lectures ;  and 
he  steadily  supported  and  attended  the  Hammersmith 
Socialist  Society,  which  met  in  his  own  house.  Mean- 
while he  translated  some  old  French  romances  and  pub- 
lished them.  Then  he  took  up  Beowulf  and  put  that 
English  Genesis  into  verse.  The  only  poetry  he  pub- 
lished in  book  form  were  the  lyrical  verses  in  the 
romances,  and  some  of  the  Poems  by  the  Way^  and  in- 
scriptions for  tapestry  and  pictures.  But  though  his 
work  as  a  poet  was  done,  it  is  a  poetical  world  in  which 
we  live  in  the  romances.  At  this  period  of  life  he 
found  more  freedom  for  imagination  in  writing  prose 
than  he  found  in  the  strictness,  restrictions,  and  diffi- 
culty of  the  higher  art  of  poetry.  Moreover,  he  could 
not  have  written  verse  now  with  the  ease,  rapidity,  and 
beauty  with  which  he  wrote  Jason  and  The  Earthly 
Paradise.  He  had  passed  through  too  much  work, 
weariness,  and  trouble. 


/ 


296  Four  Victorian  Poets 

If  he  did  not,  however,  write  much  poetry,  he  now, 
as  we  draw  near  to  the  close  of  his  literary  life,  collected 
and  published  some  occasional  poems,  chiefly  lyrical, 
under  the  title  of  Poems  by  the  Way.  The  publica- 
tion of  them  belongs  to  this  later  time,  after  he  had 
become  a  Socialist.  They  appeared  in  1896.  Some  of 
them  were  written  in  earlier  years  for  magazines,  and 
other  prints,  and  such  of  these  as  he  thought  worth 
living,  he  now  assembled  in  this  book.  Taken  to- 
gether, they  illustrate  the  changes  in  his  interests  dur- 
ing a  number  of  years.  Some  belong  to  mediaeval  life, 
others  to  the  Norse  and  Danish  influence  ;  some  to  his 
Socialist  prophesy.  Some  link  together  mediaeval  and 
northern  subjects,  invented  or  borrowed,  with  the 
modem  hopes,  aspirations,  and  angers  of  his  Socialism. 
Others  live  in  the  world  of  the  later  stories  of  pure  in- 
vention, like  Goldilocks  and  Goldilocks,  which  closes  the 
book ;  and  a  certain  number  are  personal  lyrics  of  a 
sweet,  natural,  and  subtle  tenderness.  The  little  book, 
by  this  biographical  interest,  by  its  poetic  charm,  by  its 
revelation  of  the  heart  of  Morris,  and  by  its  wide  range 
over  many  various  subjects,  is  a  delightful  companion 
in  holiday  time,  and  ought  to  be  published  in  a  com- 
panionable form.  It  is  too  romantic  for  a  wide  circula- 
tion in  this  country  whose  fault  is  not  romance,  but 
there  must  be  a  large  remnant  of  silent  persons  who 
hunger  for  a  healthy  romance  with  which  to  adorn  their 
lives.  It  is  too  socialistic  for  a  privileged  society, 
cHnging  with  all  their  fierce  suckers  to  their  money 


William  Morris  297 

and  their  comfort,  but  the  increasing  legions  of  Social- 
ism ought  to  gladly  buy  it  for  their  inspiration.  Nor 
will  its  romance  do  them  any  harm.  Socialism  needs, 
not  only  strict  economics,  but,  with  them,  the  romantic 
spirit. 

The  Socialist  I^ays  in  this  book  were  intended  to  be 
sung  as  chants.  They  are  not  quite  successful.  They 
are  too  literary  to  be  popular.  The  poems  to  which  a 
socialistic  turn  is  given,  but  whose  subjects,  like  The 
Folk-mote  by  the  River ^  are  taken  from  mediaeval  times, 
are  far  more  successful,  and  often  beautiful.  But  the 
best  of  these  socialist  poems  are  those  taken  out  of  a 
poem —  The  Pilgrims  of  Hope^  which  made  its  sole  public 
appearance  in  The  Commonweal,  Three  of  them  are 
called  The  Message  of  the  March  Wind,  Mother  and  Son  y 
The  Half  of  Life  Gone.  They  are  redolent  of  a  tender 
humanity  ;  they  are  full  of  the  sad,  quiet,  and  lonely 
secrets  of  his  nature,  and  they  enshrine  again  his  im- 
passioned love  of  the  earth  and  sky  and  the  sweet 
waters  of  England.  They  tell  of  his  unshaken  hopes 
for  the  future  when  the  cause  shall  triumph,  but  also  of 
the  deep  despondences  which  fell  upon  him  when  he 
knew  that  he  could  never  see  them  realised  in  the 
present ;  they  tell  also  of  the  sadness  which  sometimes 
looked  back  to  the  days  before  the  strife,  when  he  was 
happier.  To  read  The  Half  of  Life  Gone  is  to  read  his 
very  heart.     It  begins 

The  days  have  slain  the  days, 
And  the  seasons  have  gone  by, 


293  Fo\jr  Victorian  Poets 

And  brought  me  the  summer  again  ; 

And  here  on  the  grass  I  lie 

As  erst  I  lay  and  was  glad 

Ere  I  meddled  ivith  right  and  with  wrongs  ^H 

Yet  the  despondence  was  only  for  a  time ;  he  never 
ceased  to  be  a  pilgrim  of  hope.  Nor  did  the  sorrow, 
the  bitterness,  or  the  solitude  of  the  battle  dismay  or 
lessen  the  courage,  the  grim  resolve  with  which,  like 
his  beloved  Northmen,  he  fought  the  battle  to  the  end. 
When  the  world  is  awakened  at  last,  men  shall  re- 
member 

Of  thy  love  and  thy  deeds  and  thy  valour, 
And  thy  hope  that  nought  could  quell. 

I  have  not  spoken  of  his  limitations  as  a  poet.  They 
are  plain,  and  it  were  an  easy  task  to  speak  of  them. 
What  I  have  tried  to  do,  and  it  is  the  useful  thing,  is 
to  speak  of  his  excellent  things,  and  to  bind  them  up 
with  the  man  himself.  When  we  have  learnt  to  see 
the  excellent  in  him,  we  shall  see,  if  we  shall  then  care 
to  do  so,  where  his  faults  were,  and  where  his  limita- 
tions as  a  poet.  Whatever  they  were,  he  has  his  own 
place  in  the  great  roll  of  English  poets,  and  it  is  a  place 
select ;  and  those  who  love  him  love  him  well.  And 
here  to  close  this  essay,  and  to  bring  us  back  to  the 
man  himself,  to  a  true,  pathetic  image  of  him,  full  of 
tenderness  and  sad  courage — is  a  little  poem  written  a 
few  years  before  he  died.     To  read  it  is  to  love  him  : 

The  Wind 's  on  the  weld 
And  the  night  is  a-cold, 


William  Morris  299 


And  Thames  runs  chill 
'Twixt  mead  and  hill. 
But  kind  and  dear 
Is  the  old  house  here, 
And  my  heart  is  warm 
'Midst  winter's  harm. 
Rest  then  a  rest, 
And  think  of  the  best 
'Twixt  summer  and  spring. 
When  all  birds  sing 
In  the  town  of  the  tree, 
And  ye  lie  in  me 
And  scarce  dare  move, 
Lest  Earth  and  its  love 
Should  fade  away 
Ere  the  full  of  the  day. 
I  am  old  and  have  seen 
Many  things  that  have  been  ; 
Both  grief  and  peace 
And  wane  and  increase. 
No  tale  I  tell 
Of  ill  or  well, 
But  this  I  say, 
Night  treadeth  on  day, 
And  for  worst  and  best 
Right  good  is  rest. 


By  STOPrORD  A.  BROOIii: 

TENNYSON 

HIS  ART  AND  RELATION  TO  MODERN  LIFE 
6ro,  $2,00 

"Among  the  many  books  of  note,  criticism,  appreciation, 
and  eulogy,  called  forth  by  Tennyson's  life  and  art,  this  vol- 
ume by  Stopford  Brooke  is  the  best  that  we  have  read.  From 
the  opening  sentence  of  the  introduction  to  the  final  word  of 
the  last  chapter,  the  writing  is  calm,  dignified,  and  crystal 
clear. " — Independent, 

STUDIES  IN  POETRY 

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Those  who  enjoy  literary  criticism  that  is  charming  in 
manner,  sound  in  substance,  and  generally  illuminating,  will 
read  with  delight  this  work  which  deals  with  four  masters  of 
English  verse  of  varied  type,  namely,  Shelley,  Scott,  Blake, 
and  Keats. 

FOUR  VICTORIAN   POETS 

A    STUDY   OF 

CLOUQH— ARNOLD— ROSSETTI— MORRIS 

With  an  Introduction  on  the  Course  of  Poetry  from 
182a  to  185a 

6to.     Probable  price^  $2,00  net 

The  four  poets  who  are  the  subjects  of  Dr.  Brooke's  study 
are  A.  H.  Clough,  Matthew  Arnold,  D.  G.  Rossetti,  and 
William  Morris.  Their  share  in  the  poetic  movement  of  the 
latter  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  needs  to  be  acknowledged 
and  appreciated,  and  it  is  Dr.  Brooke's  endeavor  in  the  present 
volume  to  give  a  just  estimate  of  the  quality  and  importance 
of  their  work.  Those  who  have  read  Dr.  Brooke's  able  ex- 
positions of  the  art  of  Tennyson  and  Browning  will  expect 
the  same  insight  and  literary  judgment  here,  and  will  not  be 
disappointed. 

Q.  P.  PUTNAM'S  SONS 

NEW  YORK  LONDON 


Shelburne  Essays 

By  Paul  Elmer  More 

5  vols.     Crown  octavo. 
Sold  separately.     Net,  $1.25.     (By  mail,  $1.35) 

Contents 

First  Series:  A  Hermit's  Notes  on  Thoreau— The  Soli- 
tude of  Nathaniel  Hawthorne  —  The  Origins  of  Haw- 
thorne and  Poe — The  Influence  of  Emerson — The  Spirit 
of  Cariyle  —  The  Science  of  English  Verse  —  Arthur 
Symons  :  The  Two  Illusions — The  Epic  of  Ireland — 
Two  Poets  of  the  Irish  Movement — Tolstoy ;  or,  The 
Ancient  Feud  between  Philosophy  and  Art — The  Re- 
ligious Ground  of  Humanitarianism. 

Second  Series  :  Elizabethan  Sonnets — Shakespeare's  Son- 
nets— Lafcadio  Hearn — The  First  Complete  Edition  of 
Hazlitt  —  Charles  Lamb — Kipling  and  FitzGerald  — 
George  Crabbe  —  The  Novels  of  George  Meredith  — 
Hawthorne:  Looking  before  and  after — Delphi  and 
Greek  Literature — Nemesis :  or,  The  Divine  Envy. 

Third  Series  :  The  Correspondence  of  William  Cowper — 
Whittier  the  Poet  —  The  Centenary  of  Sainte-Beuve — 
The  Scotch  Novels  and  Scotch  History — Swinburne — 
Christina  Rossetti — Why  is  Browning  Popular? — A  Note 
on  Byron's  '*Don  Juan" — Laurence  Sterne — J.  Henry 
Shorthouse — The  Quest. 

Fourth  Series  :  The  Vicar  of  Morwenstow — Fanny  Bur- 
ney— A  Note  on  "  Daddy  '*  Crisp — George  Herbert — John 
Keats — Benjamin  Franklin — Charles  Lamb  Again — Walt 
Whitman — William  Blake — The  Theme  of  Paradise  Lost 
— The  Letters  of  Horace  Walpole. 

Fifth  Series:  The  Greek  Anthology  —  The  Praise  of 
Dickens — George  Gassing — Mrs.  Gaskell — Philip  Freneau 
— Thoreau's  Journal — The  Centenary  of  Longfellow — 
Donald  G.  Mitchell— James  Thomson  ( ♦'  B.  V.")— Ches- 
terfield— Sir  Henry  Watton. 


A  Few  Press  Criticisms  on 
Shelburne  Essays 

"  It  is  a  pleasure  to  hail  in  Mr.  More  a  genuine  critic,  for 
genuine  critics  in  America  in  these  days  are  uncommonly 
scarce.  ,  .  .  We  recommend,  as  a  sample  of  his  breadth, 
style,  acumen,  and  power  the  essay  on  Tolstoy  in  the  present 
volume.  That  represents  criticism  that  has  not  merely 
a  metropolitan  but  a  world  note.  .  .  .  One  is  thoroughly 
grateful  to  Mr.  More  for  the  high  quality  of  his  thought,  his 
serious  purpose,  and  his  excellent  style." — Harvard  Gradtt» 
ates*  Magazine. 

**We  do  not  know  of  any  one  now  writing  who  gives 
evidence  of  a  better  critical  equipment  than  Mr.  More.  It 
is  rare  nowadays  to  find  a  writer  so  thoroughly  familiar  with 
both  ancient  and  modem  thought.  It  is  this  width  of  view, 
this  intimate  acquaintance  with  so  much  of  the  best  that  has 
been  thought  and  said  in  the  world,  irrespective  of  local 
prejudice,  that  constitute  Mr.  More*s  strength  as  a  critic. 
He  has  been  able  to  form  for  himself  a  sound  literary  canon 
and  a  sane  philosophy  of  life  which  constitute  to  our  mind 
his  peculiar  merit  as  a  critic.*' — Independent 

**  He  is  familiar  with  classical,  Oriental,  and  English 
literature;  he  uses  a  temperate,  lucid,  weighty,  and  not 
ungraceful  style ;  he  is  aware  of  his  best  predecessors,  and  is 
apparently  on  the  way  to  a  set  of  philosophic  principles 
which  should  lead  him  to  a  high  and  perhaps  influential 
place  in  criticism.  .  ,  .  We  believe  that  we  are  in  the 
presence  of  a  critic  who  must  be  counted  among  the  first  who 
take  literature  and  life  for  their  theme.** — London  Speaker^ 


G.   P.   Putnam's  Sons 
New  York  London 


The  Works  and  Letters 

of 

Charles  and  Mary  Lamb 

Edited  by  E.  V.  LUCAS 

7  volumes.    Octavo.    Very  fully  illustrated.    Each, 
net,  $2.25 

The  Works  are  divided  as  follows  : 
I. — Miscellaneous  Prose.     1798-1834. 
I!.— The  Essays  of  Elia  and  The  Last  Essays 

of  Elia. 
III.— Books  for  Children. 
IV. — Dramatic  Specimens. 
V. — Poems  and  Plays. 
VI.  and  VII.— The  Letters. 

The  Lucas  edition  of  the  works  of  Charles  and  Mary  Lamb 
is  now  complete  in  seven  octavo  volumes,  the  sixth  and 
seventh  being  devoted  to  the  letters  of  the  Lambs.  Mr.  E. 
V.  Lucas  is  recognized  as  the  authority  on  the  Lambs,  and  his 
skilful  arrangement  and  illuminating  notes  make  this  set 
certain  of  acceptance  as  the  standard  library  edition.  The 
last  two  volumes,  covering  the  correspondence,  contain  many 
hitherto  unpublished  letters  written  by  Charles  Lamb  and  his 
sister  Mary,  whose  letters  are  now  for  the  first  time  included 
with  those  of  her  brother.  Charles  Lamb  was  a  ready  and 
brilliant  letter-writer,  and  his  letters  to  his  close  friends  such 
as  Coleridge,  Wordsworth,  and  Southey,  with  the  editor's 
connecting  notes,  form  almost  a  complete  record  of  some  of 
the  most  interesting  portions  of  his  life.  For  their  intimacy 
and  frankness  Lamb's  letters  may  be  likened  to  those  of 
Stevenson  in  our  own  time  and  they  deserve  equal  popularity. 


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